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Gallery |
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"Two-Headed Hereford,
Alva, Oklahoma," oil
on panel, 12" x 9" |
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STATEMENT: |
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I make pictures because I like to tell stories. I particularly enjoy
telling highly descriptive and sometimes darkly humorous stories about
natural wonders and weirdness.
I have a profound attraction to old objects, old pictures, and old
stories; the narrative of my childhood included. It is often a longing
for things I have never experienced, having made contact with them
only through small-scale printed images in books. As a child I spent
many hours with books, putting my face close to the page so that I
could breathe in the nutty warmth of the paper and study the miniature
pictures. In my innocence I believed that the illustrations were drawn
and painted at size. My attraction to old things and the intimacy of
miniature scale are married for this reason.
The stories I wish to create are sometimes best told using language
borrowed from the art and particularly the painting of the 17th
century. One of the defining features of northern European painting in
this period is its specificity in description; its reverence in
observing and recording the seen world. I like to think that this
careful description, which invites close looking, allows the viewer to
engage more intimately with the story I am trying to tell.
Oddities, disease, and death have long fascinated artists. My
attraction to morbid imagery is the product of a profound love of
nature coupled with a fear and subsequent fascination with disease. My
attraction to natural, life-sustaining, beautiful things is at
uncomfortable odds with my attraction to natural things that can also
cause suffering and death. It is borne of an overarching interest in
subjects that exist in between or just outside of established
categories. My paintings of these images are records of my attempt to
try to understand and classify things for which there might not be a
tidy classification.
My work often contains images of animals. I am interested in
historical interactions between science and art and the use of animals
as symbols in art and visual culture. Studying animal symbolism can
allow us to better understand our own nature and the nature of our
relationship with the creatures with which we share our world. Drawing
and painting and the study of natural history have been married since
before the Enlightenment. Illustrations of animals provided access to
knowledge and wonder that could best be communicated visually.
Wonderment is a kind of intellectual passion. I think it can lead to
better appreciation and stewardship of animals and by extension the
entire natural world.
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RESUME |
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Education: |
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2009 |
M.F.A., School of Art and Design,
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL |
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2006 |
B.F.A., Painting and Drawing, The School of the Art Institute of
Chicago, Chicago, IL |
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Awards: |
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2015 |
Monumental Ideas/ Intimate
Scale Honorable Mention for "This Too Shall Pass, 2014"
River Campus Gallery, Southeast Missouri State University, Juror
Benjie Heu |
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2013 |
55th Annual Delta Exhibit Honorable Mention,
The Neonate,
Arkansas Art Center, Juror Monica Bowman |
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2009 |
Thesis Award Recipient, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign,
Urbana, IL |
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2007 |
Brodie Materials Grant, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign,
Urbana, IL |
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Graduate College Fellowship, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign,
Urbana, IL |
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2006 |
Brodie Materials Grant, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign,
Urbana, IL |
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Graduate College Fellowship, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign,
Urbana, IL |
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Recognition Merit Scholarship, School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
Chicago, IL |
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2005 |
Recognition Merit Scholarship, School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
Chicago, IL |
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2004 |
Recognition Merit Scholarship, School of the Art Institute of Chicago,
Chicago, IL |
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Selected Exhibitions: |
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2016 |
Zg Winter Group Show, Zg
Gallery, Chicago, IL |
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2015 |
Wanderlust, group show,
Modern Eden Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Intime: Small Paintings and Drawings, group show, First Street
Gallery, Eureka, CA
Super Creeps, The Malia Matsumoto Pop-Up Gallery, Eureka, CA
Brandice Guerra: Naturalia, New Paintings & Works on Paper, Zg
Gallery, Chicago, IL
Observations and Collections, group show, Clara Hatton Gallery,
Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO
Monumental Ideas/Intimate Scale, River Campus Gallery, SE MO State
Univ., Cape Girardeau, MO
Scientificous, group show, Manifest Creative Research Gallery and
Drawing Center, Cincinnati, OH |
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2014 |
"Wunderkammer,"
Science Museum Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, OK, |
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2013 |
"The 28th Annual
Tallahassee International", FSU Museum of Fine Arts, Tallahassee,
FL |
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"Mayhem", Group
Show, Arc Gallery, San Francisco, CA |
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"Playground: Art
Inspired by Childhood" Group Show, Sebastopol Center for the Arts,
Sebastopol, CA |
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"Solemnity", Group
Show, Flow Art Space, Minneapolis, MN |
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"55th Annual Delta
Exhibition" Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR |
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2012 |
"The Day on
Fire:Apocalypse in Contemporary Art,"E.TN State University, Johnson City, TN |
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"Brandice Guerra:
Paintings of the Monstrous &Fantastic," OK Historical Society
Museum, Aline, OK |
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"Brandice Guerra:
Paintings," Graceful Arts Center, Alva, OK |
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2009 |
"Magnitude Seven,"
Group Show, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH |
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"Fieldwork", Group
Show, iSpace Gallery Chicago, IL |
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MFA Thesis
Exhibition, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign,
IL |
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“6th Annual
Surrealist, Visionary, Fantastic” group show, Caladan Gallery,
Cambridge, MA |
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“Boys Will Be Boys”,
group show, Fe Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA |
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“Specters” two
person show, Springer Cultural Center, Champaign, IL |
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Selected
Bibliography: |
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2013 |
International Painting Annual 3, Manifest Press |
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Concept art, animation assets, and illustration for Frivolous Twist's
"Lexicon Larry's West Word" app. for iOS. |
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"Stranger in a Strange Land: Brandice Guerra"
by Molly O' Connor, Art Focus Oklahoma Mag., March/April 2013 |
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Leslie Newell Peacock. Exhibition Review. "A Rich Delta", Eye Candy,
the Arkansas Times, 1/23/13 |
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2012 |
Exhibition Catalog. The Day on Fire: Apocalypse in Contemporary Art.
East Tennessee State University, 2012 |
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Civitas: Academic journal cover design, Northwestern Journal of
Citizenship Studies, Vol.1, 2012 |
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2010 |
Digital Natural History Illustrations, Digital Landscape Murals. Rend
Lake Preserve, Illinois |
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2009 |
Acrylic Natural History Illustrations. Grand Bay Preserve, Mississippi |
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Digital Natural History Illustrations. Living Desert Preserve, New
Mexico |
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Exhibition Catalog. "Magnitude 7 2009", Manifest Gallery Volume 36,
June 2009 |
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Guia Cortassa. Artspotting Monthly Column (Young Artists Yet Unknown
in Italy), Lobodilattice Mag., May 2009 |
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Commissioned by the Springer Cultural Center of Champaign to execute a
painting for
the creation of posters and playbills for the ballet at
the Virginia Theatre, February 2009 |
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2006 |
Katrina Kuntz. “Is The Best Art In the Bathroom? A short Review of the
BFA Show”
F News Magazine, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, May 2006 |
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Matt Hoffman. “Artist Corner: Brandice Guerra,” Buzz Magazine, October
2006 |
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Public Collections: |
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Science Museum Oklahoma,
Oklahoma City, OK |
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Springer Cultural Center of Champaign, IL |
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