Brad Kunkle
www.bradkunkle.com
Born in rural Pennsylvania, Brad Kunkle spent his younger years exploring and romanticizing the beauty of the sparse countryside and the deep forests around him. From an early age he was drawn to the worlds of Maxfield Parrish and the Pre-Raphaelites —worlds, he says, “where a subtle, supernatural beauty seems to be hiding under the breath of women —worlds where something beyond our natural perception is waiting to be found.” Brad graduated with a degree in fine arts from Kutztown University, studying mostly under George Sorrels, who was taught by a pupil of the 19th century Academic painter, William Adolphe Bougereau. In an effort to discover his own artistic sensibilities, he worked as a commission-based portraitist, and began an almost decade-long journey of continued self-instruction and independent study. As a decorative painter in his mid twenties, he leafed entire walls in copper. He was beguiled by the shifting, life-like nature of the surfaces, and began to incorporate gilding in his work. This proved to fulfill the unreal quality he had been looking for to convey his moody, romantic ideas of human nature and ritual. In an old wooden box that holds his paints, he keeps a slip of paper with a quote from Pablo Picasso. “You must always work not just within but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, handle only five. In that way, the ones you do handle, you handle with such ease, more mastery and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.” Brad’s work has appeared in American Art Collector magazine as well as Fine Art Connoisseur. He is represented by Arcadia Fine Arts in NYC and will have his first one man exhibition in April of 2010.
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