ARTIST STATEMENT

Most of what I create, from collages to paintings, has a found element — a book oxidized 

by a note placed inside its pages decades before or a rejected piece of partially dyed canvas.

With my collages, I'm inspired by the hunt to find new materials and subject matter and the challenge of executing and editing. A piece is finished when the combination of shapes, colors, and ideas come together like a puzzle and when the positive and negative space have equal say. 

Many of my paintings expand upon my “Gathering” series — works of surrealistic landscapes with peculiar masses of people. Many of these pieces evolve from recent travels and outdoor escapes where I find myself searching for sparks of inspiration in landscapes and quirkiness in nature. Some scenes become backdrops and some I sculpt and alter to fit an obnoxious number of humans.

I make art to see how far from my comfort zone I can go, to make something beautiful from something discarded, and to discover new directions in both process and subject.

I live and work in Jersey City, NJ.

BIO

Kirkland Bray is a painter and collage artist whose work is deeply rooted in the use of found materials. Whether

working with oxidized book pages, discarded canvases, or repurposed textures, his creative process embraces

discovery and transformation. Bray’s paintings often expand upon his ongoing “Gathering” series - a collection of

surrealistic landscapes populated by peculiar masses of people. Influenced by his travels and outdoor

explorations, his work reimagines natural settings, sometimes preserving their essence, other times altering them to accommodate an eerie and exaggerated human presence.

At the heart of Bray’s practice is a desire to push beyond his comfort zone—creating beauty from the discarded, reinterpreting familiar spaces, and continuously evolving his approach. He has been painting on found surfaces for more than 20 years and began incorporating collage into his work in 2012. Kirkland Bray lives and works in Jersey City, NJ.