Brian Caraway
Website: https://www.briancaraway.com
Bio: Brian was born in 1975 in Loma Linda, California. He lived and worked in Oakland, California. He got his MFA from Mills College and BA in Painting and Printmaking at San Francisco State University. His last solo exhibition was in 2024 called Universal Interdependence, or Alternative Sideshow, Kala Art Institute. He won the Herringer Prize in 2009 and the Nell-Sinton Grant in 2008.
Statement: I often think of my work as analogous to music and mathematics – like these ‘languages,’ my work takes the form of a nonverbal expression that is both inspired and supported by naturally occurring patterns and rhythmic phenomena. I am not sure that my paintings are really meant to be understood on a cerebral level; my emphasis is more on sensation. In keeping with this approach, my practice comprises both an extreme sense of visual discipline – it is “hard-edged” abstraction, after all, and every stroke and proportion needs to be perfect for me to feel a painting is finished – and simultaneously, a sense of fun and light-heartedness. Like Lee “Scratch” Perry blowing smoke into the reel-to-reel recorder while composing his epic dub reggae tracks, I want some of the freewheeling pleasure I take in making each work to come through in its final state
