ABOUT THE ARTIST
Exhibit Record
BIOGRAPHY:
Bruce Black (born August 15, 1970) is an American artist whose paintings chronicle the personal exploration of psyche and spirit. His style has shifted from abstraction to symbolism over the years in an ongoing effort to translate more fully the diverse set of emotions and experiences he has attempted to capture. Black draws from classical mythology, philosophy, and personal experience to create evocative images that are at once mysterious, challenging, and beautiful.
Black was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, but his family moved to Arizona when he was two. He showed an early interest in art, and his parents and grandparents encouraged him to pursue that interest. He graduated from Sunnyslope High School in 1989 and then attended the University of Arizona, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1993 with an emphasis in illustration. He worked briefly as an illustrator before enrolling in the University of Delaware’s graduate program for painting with a full teaching scholarship in 1996. Black graduated from the University of Delaware in 1998 with a Master of Fine Arts degree and moved to Oregon where he began his professional career.
Black quickly earned a position in the Blackfish Gallery in downtown Portland and also became an Associate Professor of Art at Willamette University where he taught painting and drawing. He has participated in several group and solo exhibitions and received a Burdock Burn Grant in 2000 to complete a series of paintings focusing on the ideas of war and peace. His work is also in the collection of the Hallie Ford Museum as well Viterbo University and several private collections.
Black has always continued to make artwork for himself, but he stopped exhibiting in 2003 due to family commitments and circumstances. Now in 2011, after a long hiatus from the art world, he has created a new body of work and is once again actively exhibiting. In his recent work, Black has made use of a diverse collection of esoteric symbols that he freely mixes and re-contextualizes in order to develop images that evoke spiritual transformation. The symbols come from various sources including different religious iconography as well as the hermetic traditions. As Black states, “They are not meant to evoke a particular religious ideology or viewpoint, but rather to convey an inner view and journey toward greater awareness with those aspects associated with the subconscious and thus the divine.” These new paintings are of an intimate scale and crafted primarily through the use of collage and watercolor on paper.
Bruce Black currently teaches art at a Phoenix Preparatory Academy. He was married to Marla Bridgewater in 2010 and is also the proud father of his son, Liam.
