Today we’d like to introduce you to Brendan Kramp.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I used to draw and paint as a kid and enjoyed it a lot. My parents tell stories about how this was an activity I was drawn to and I remember going to camp and other things as a kid where I liked doing painting and drawing, too. In high school, we had a very good art program and I took those courses, learning the fundamentals of color theory, perspective, portraiture, and using acrylic and oil and other paints. In my senior year of high school, I had the opportunity to do what was called a senior year seminar in art. It was an elective and a year-long studio course with group crits and feedback. I was independent and really started focusing on painting at that time. When I went to college, I felt I had to choose a subject and a way towards employment, so I chose English Literature and Writing, feeling they were broad and could lead to lots of paths. I did only a couple art courses at college and instead threw myself fully into Literature and writing, and went straight to graduate school after college where earned an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from the University of Minnesota. The idea of story, narrative, and character have deeply influenced my sense of paintings and bringing the idea of a story or atmosphere to my paintings. After finishing graduate school, I moved to London, UK and began a career working in fundraising and corporate development for non-profits that included the Royal Academy of Arts, English National Opera, INSEAD, NPR, and several others.
I did not paint for nearly 17 years while I pursued this career, living 10 years abroad in the UK and France, and then moving back to the United States in 2010. I moved home to the Twin Cities in 2012 and decided to take up painting again as I had missed it and had many ideas I wanted to try out in the medium. I moved into an arts cooperative in downtown St. Paul and took a year to really delve into painting, particularly portraying the coffee shops, restaurants, and other local scenes that were around me. I use the drawings and photographs that I take in my life to inspire my paintings, including from my trips abroad. I quickly developed a realist style that brings character and mood as well as strong aspects of light into my works. I also like working at large scale, with many of my paintings at the 5 or 6 foot size. My intention is to make the viewer feel as if they are actually in the space, experiencing the atmosphere and feeling of the place. I continued to work in fundraising and corporate development for many years while painting in the evenings and weekends, slowly building up my painting business and showing in coffee shops, group shows, open studio tours, and more. Then in 2019 I took the plunge and left my job to go full time with my painting, participating in 16 shows and fairs in 2019 alone. Since then I’ve just kept building my portfolio and show opportunities over time. Even during the pandemic, I was able to be very productive and, thanks to the internet and other media, I kept selling and completing commissions and other work.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I’d say it’s been patchy. I took a very linear and measured approach to going full time as an artist. I worked very demanding jobs with lots of travel and hours, so finding time alongside the jobs to paint and show was tough. I am also a pretty slow painter since I do detailed realistic scenes, so one painting could have taken me as much as 2 or more months when I was working a day job. Taking it slow and trying things out really paid off, however, particularly as I dipped my toe in the art fair scene in 2017 and 2018 first before making the full jump. I also participated in tons of open studio and other shows like the St. Paul Art Crawl, Art-A-Whirl in Northeast Minneapolis, and other opportunities. Those shows allowed me to hear how the public reacted to my work, how certain people gravitated towards it or liked my style and subject matter, and where I could best place myself.
I really over-scheduled myself in 2019 when I went full time, participating in more than 16 fairs and shows. It was too much, but I learned a ton. I also had no idea the pandemic would cancel all my opportunities to show in 2020, so in hindsight, I am glad I did so much in 2019. I can’t underestimate the impact that the pandemic has had on artists and the ability to show, travel, have openings, or people to my studio. It’s been a major setback and really challenged artists like myself to get ourselves online as much as possible.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a realist and figurative painter, almost exclusively in oil. I concentrate on urban interior scenes like coffee shops and known places or favorite hangouts, as well as cityscapes both locally and internationally. I did a whole show that went up in St. Paul where I featured scenes from cities I had lived in or visited, including Hong Kong, Paris, Rome, Prague, New York, and more. I loved the idea of the travel aspect and depicting the different architectures and cultures through my paintings. More recently I have expanded to a whole range of nature-inspired work, including trips to a state forest in Oregon and the Japanese Garden that sits on top of the city of Portland, OR. I did several works last year that I took on the road with me to New York and Chicago to show to new audiences.
I am mainly known for doing detailed and realistic slices of life in urban spaces, and my use of light. Someone who saw my work once said to me that “they knew what time of day it was in each of my paintings.” I think that was a very good description of the way that light creates a mood and feeling or atmosphere that imbues each of my paintings. I’m also drawn to places where people are going about their everyday lives, but give a sense of a greater story or narrative going on, almost like a still from a movie or a poster that suggests the whole narrative of the film.
I’m particularly proud of a few paintings I did in the past years depicting out-of-the-way spaces including a tile making factory in Northeast Minneapolis and a foyer in a warehouse. These are spaces and people that are not normally featured in art but drew me in from the complexity and beauty of the interiors.
What matters most to you? Why?
What matters most is having a creative life where I get to keep exploring and trying things, and creating work from it that touches people. I like that interplay between me and the audience of viewers and hearing how they are drawn to or impacted by work. I feel like it creates a conversation on a level different than the mental or verbal conversations we usually have. I’m also interested to see if the spaces and people that touch me translate across to other people, and what they see in them.
Pricing:
- My paintings range from $1200 – $7500 depending on the size and complexity.
- I also produce prints on paper, wood, metal of different sizes from my paintings. These are reproductions and so they are much more economical for most people, and can start as low as $60.
Contact Info:
- Email: Brendan.Kramp@gmail.com
- Website: www.brendankramp.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brendan_kramp_studio/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrendanKrampWorkshopStudio/
