Artist Bio and Statement

Bryant Portwood is a contemporary figurative painter living and working out of New York City. Bryant received his BA in studio art with an art history minor from Centre College, and more recently, earned his MFA in painting with an anatomy minor from the New York Academy of Art. He has exhibited work along the East coast from gallery shows in New York City to Miami Art Week in Florida. He received the Founder’s Scholarship to Centre College and the Academy Scholar Award at NYAA. He was the recipient of the Katherine Chapin memorial fund. He was admitted into NYAA’s professional mentorship program and was selected as a mentee to Alyssa Monks. During his undergraduate years, Bryant originally studied financial economics prior to converting to art. This has had a comical impact on his work as he strives to portray this desire to escape a grey, monochrome reality into his own world of color.

Bryant Portwood has developed a unique visual language in his dream state paintings. His work revolves around personal feelings of wanting. Imaginative escapism is an essential part of coping with a sometimes bland reality. Figures are placed in fictitious settings with magical and otherworldly elements that create a surreal effect. By creating these surroundings, the figure depicted automatically becomes the protagonist of their own story. To echo the idea that growing up deteriorates imagination, Bryant often paints kids as his subject matter. This instantly enhances the blunt impact of the imaginative theme as well as adding elements of innocence and, depending on the viewer, sometimes nostalgia. The paintings are made using a high chroma palette to both make the paintings more approachable and create an unreal image.