I began working on a large painting for this exhibition around 2018. One of the last and most meaningful statements that my mentor Richard Carlyon said to me was “never make ‘art,’ make the thing you are meant to make.” After working over and repainting the 2018 painting, I thought about the statement Richard Carlyon had made, and began to understand its importance – especially for this body of work. Now I see each artwork as an experiment. I use all tools and mediums within my reach to achieve the story and effect I am looking for – traditional acrylic media and mediums, found objects, knives, water-based crayons, sandpaper, collage, natural and processed charcoal, ink, graphite, watercolor pencil, and a mix of metallic and iridescent paints. When I am at a standstill, I photograph the work and take it home on my phone, bring it up in Photoshop and work out the ideas there. When I return to my studio, I use the new digital sketches as references to complete the piece. My friend and curator, Jay Barrows, once said about my work at a curator’s discussion, “I am not sure what Brad’s process is, but Brad, you should keep on doing it.” I look for cues like this always, and in that particular case I had partially painted over and through some paintings using marks and strokes. Using this thought, the paintings now become a record of event, story, and time. They offer a bit of the lineage of the painting as material and image breaks through in a pentimento style. If I was going to approach art making as not making ‘art,’ then I thought I would approach the body of work as a series of experimental projects. I utilized various size formats and surfaces and an array of techniques, re-learning painting and drawing as I went. The works in the show range from small to large and the surfaces consist of wood panel, paper, and canvas. This mix-chance approach hopefully adds an additional layer of diversity and depth to the exhibition as a whole

It’s hard making art while your world is on edge. Over the last year we experienced blatant societal fascism and racism, the murders of innocent Black people, and a coming together of communities to stand up against these atrocities. In our own community we tore down monuments to slavery and oppression, and built a new world of art and expression on the same spaces. We’ve almost survived a global pandemic and an attempted coup on our country, and personally, much more. In the midst of all this I found that drawing became a useful ritual, and practiced it every day, at every turn.

Walter Benjamin, the Jewish philosopher who died escaping nazi persecution, who describing the art-making process said: “It is significant that the existence of the work of art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function.” His concept of aura was in reference to the original artwork or movement. I began to notice how much this theory meant to my art-making experience over the past year. During time of global and personal crises we rely on our everyday rituals for continuity and safe space. For me, this began with the everyday act of drawing. In turn, this became an investigation in painting and drawing and where they crossed over.

My art practice became an experiment in the mix of formalism and narrative, ideas of place and social constructs, concepts of humans and their interactions with the other, and questions about our ability to come together and create one voice. In the end, when all is done, the physical artwork itself is what remains, telling the story of the art-making process.

Brad Birchett is a mixed media and intermedia artist who  lives and works in Richmond, Virginia where he is an  Instructor and Senior Advisor for VCU School of the Arts.  Brad’s work investigates events over time through painting,  drawing, recording, installation, and other movements. 

 Brad has shown at national venues such as Bowery Gallery  in New York, Delicious Spectacle Gallery in D.C., Aljira Center for Contemporary Art in Newark, New Jersey, and The  Center for Book Arts in New York. His work has also been  shown in international exhibitions at Sebastian Fath Contemporary in Mannheim Germany, Crou’n Haitai Gallery in Seoul Korea, Imagine Gallery in Bejing China, and The  Biennial International Art and Design Conference in Doha,  Qatar.  

Brad is an Emeritus Member of 1708 Gallery, has given lectures for the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, University of Mary Washington, and VCU Honors College. Brad's essay, Assessing the Process, was published in Integrative Teaching International’s magazine, Future Forward: Foundations NOW. He has curated a few exhibitions including Richard Carlyon: A Retrospective – Interval, for 1708 Gallery.