Brandon Bird

Brandon Bird is an American illustrator and cartoonist.

Brandon Bird
Born1980
Patron(s)Artist-in-Residence at Cornell University from 2004-2006
Websitewww.brandonbird.com

Early life

Brandon Bird was born in 1980 in Carmichael, California, a suburb of Sacramento. He attended University of California, Santa Cruz and was an artist-in-residence from 2004–2006 at Risley Residential College at Cornell University. His most common medium is oil paints on canvas, but he has shown the ability to work with a multiplicity of artistic genres, including pen and ink and digital mediums. In 2013, Chronicle Books published a collection of his work, Brandon Bird's Astonishing World of Art.[1]

Career

Bird tends to paint figures from history and popular culture such as Christopher Walken, Chuck Norris, and Abraham Lincoln, in absurd situations. He has also organized four "weird art shows":[2] Law & Order: These Are Their Stories[3] consisted solely of paintings inspired by the TV series Law & Order and featured art by Bird and contemporaries such as Michael Kupperman, Jason Polan, and Kate Beaton, The Norton Anthology[4] was a group of portraits of Edward Norton, the western-themed Days of Boom and Bust: New Art from the Gold Rush,[5] and an earlier Law & Order-themed show, "Artistic Intent" in 2003.[6]

On January 20, 2004, Bird's Law & Order-inspired coloring book, Law & Order: An Adventure to Color!,[7] was presented to the show's star, Jerry Orbach, on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Bird's work was featured in a July 2010 Newsweek gallery entitled "Portraits of Celebrity Weirdness", giving an overview of his works and the inspiration behind several of his paintings.[8]

He is a regular contributor to The Believer. He has also done work for Las Vegas Weekly.

Bird is a longtime friend of California rock band The Aquabats, and has designed many of their T-shirts and promotional material. Most notably, he painted the covers for their 2004 EP Yo! Check Out This Ride! and the "One Year Anniversary Edition" of their 2005 album Charge!!, as well as having illustrated a coloring book entitled "Trouble at the Rodeo". More recently, he has contributed to the band's television series, The Aquabats! Super Show!.

His website won a 2005 People's Voice Webby Award under the "Weird" category. He is an associate member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.[9]

Reviewing his work for tor.com, Bridget McGovern said that "it's really not an exaggeration to say that Brandon Bird has managed to capture the soul of everything fun about pop culture in paint and canvas."[10]

Work

Original works

These are some examples of the work displayed on Bird's website:

Commissioned works
gollark: It's not like discussing stuff requires a channel.
gollark: You *can* just use <#424419879853096961>.
gollark: I read a bit of a blog from someone doing at-home silicon fabrication stuff, but it was still slow and expensive and they managed to make an IC with something like... four transistors on it.
gollark: It can't cost *that* many millions of dollars.
gollark: Just make your own CPUs in your basement.

References
  1. "Brandon Bird's Astonishing World of Art". Chronicle Books. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  2. "Brandon Bird, Art Shows, Events, and Projects". brandonbird.com. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  3. "These are Their Stories". brandonbird.com. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  4. "The Norton Anthology". brandonbird.com. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  5. "Brandon Bird: "Days of Boom and 'Bust"". brandonbird.com. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  6. "Law & Order: Artistic Intent". brandonbird.com. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  7. ""Law & Order: An Adventure to Color"--Brandon Bird". brandonbird.com. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  8. Unknown. "Portraits of Celebrity Weirdness: Painter Brandon Bird's strange vision of the stars". Newsweek. Retrieved 2010-02-23.
  9. "International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences". iadas.net. Archived from the original on 3 May 2015. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  10. Bridget McGovern. "Brandon Bird: Geek. Artist. Pop Culture Genius". tor.com. Retrieved 2008-12-05.
  11. "Arete". Retrieved 2010-03-12.
  12. "Tartarus". Retrieved 2010-03-12.
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