Braden Bandel (b. 1991, Kansas City, MO) lives and works in New Haven, CT. He earned a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2016 and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2020. His work has been exhibited at 1969 Gallery in New York, NY; AICAD Studios in New York, NY; Verum Ultimum in Portland, OR; Gelman Gallery in Providence, RI; Vulpes Bastille in Kansas City, MO; and The Missouri Humanities Council in Kansas City, MO.

Statement

I am invested in the idea of painting as a container for the psychological. Much of the research for my recently completed MFA thesis at Rhode Island School of Design, titled “Frankenstein, Ruins & Twilight,” is concerned with the role of gothic fiction as a means of processing individual and collective fears and anxieties during times of rapid social, technological, and political change. Drawing a connection between literary fiction and the fiction of the painted image, I attempt to translate some of the ambitions of fiction writing into the realm of painting. I have a proclivity for the fantastical and the melancholic, which have remained as abiding themes in my recent work. In these paintings, I employ a color palette intended to be reminiscent of twilight in hopes of infusing the scenes and subject matter with the mood, associations, and liminal nature of that time.

www.bradenbandel.com