Bio
Blake Brasher is a visual artist working primarily in mixed media painting. His colorful abstractions are reflections on the nature of reality and what it is like to be a thinking being in a universe that is at once beautiful and terrifying. He grew up in Alaska, and has also lived in Turkey,Texas, and Arizona before moving to Massachusetts in 1997. He received his BS in Art and Design from MIT in 2003 and his MFA from Lesley University in Cambridge MA in 2022. He has been exhibiting his work publicly since 2008. His work is internationally collected, and he has participated in artist residency programs in Italy, Romania, France, New York, and Massachusetts. He is an artist member at Bromfield Gallery in Boston. He currently lives in Harvard, MA with his fiancée and their two little boys and maintains a studio in beautiful downtown Lowell, MA.
Artist Statement
When I make a painting, I try to capture that sense of a memory or a new understanding being just out of reach. I use elements like bits of text that are obscured and made un-readable, little doodles, and regular repeating patterns to engage the brain’s recognition systems but leave out just enough to so that the recognition does not quite resolve. In this way my work creates propositional spaces that interact with the imagination.
I think of these pieces as abstract mind-scapes. They incorporate different elements of the conscious experience such as raw emotion as colors smeared and poured in fields and streaks or ordered thought as systems of patterns that follow recognizable rules. Bits of text and cartoon imagery represent the fleeting qualia of the unquiet modern mind.
My work is an exploration of the physical and spiritual nature of life expressed in color and movement. I believe the purpose of art is to help one find their place in the universe, and I consider a painting a success if it has the power to draw people into a state of meditative contemplation.