Brian Bishop is an American visual artist and educator based in the UK where he is a Senior Lecturer and Course Director for BA (Hons) Fine Art at Birmingham School of Art.
He attended the School of Visual Arts in New York, NY; Memphis College of Art in Memphis, TN (BFA 1993); and Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI (MFA 1995). In addition to an early curatorial career, he has taught on both the undergraduate and postgraduate level for nearly three decades. Prior to BCU, he worked at Framingham State University in suburban Boston, Massachusetts for sixteen years with previous faculty and leadership appointments at The University of Alabama, University of Memphis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and in the postgraduate MFA programmes at San Francisco Art Institute, New Hampshire Institute of Art, and Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
His studio practice has been exhibited internationally including select solo exhibitions at the Cheekwood Museum of Art in Nashville, TN; Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven, CT; Artspace in Raleigh, NC; Georgetown University in Washington, DC; and at Youngblood Gallery in Atlanta, GA. He has also participated in group exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC; Royal Hibernian Academy of the Arts in Dublin, Ireland; A+D Gallery at Columbia College in Chicago, IL; Delaware Centre for Contemporary Art in Wilmington, DE; BECA in New Orleans, LA; Catalyst Arts in Belfast, UK; Southeastern Centre for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC; Galway Arts Centre in Galway, Ireland; Gallery 111 in Johannesburg, South Africa and The Painting Centre in New York, NY.
- Contemporary Fine Art Theory and Practice
- Arts Administration
- Artist-run initiatives
- Art Education
- Master of Fine Arts (MFA), Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI USA, 1995
- Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), Memphis College of Art, Memphis, TN USA, 1993
- College Art Association (CAA), Member
Brian's studio practice primarily explores the process wherein the photographic image remediated through the discursive and lyrical filter of painting exposes latent meaning. The consistent thread throughout his practice has been an investigation of the interstice between fact and fiction in our contemporary life mired in quotidian minutiae, documentation and embellishment.
His research explores multiple themes, both conceptual and socio-political, investigating topics ranging from social isolation to identity to borders and migration.
- Keynote Speaker, How the Image Echoes Symposium, The MAC, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Paper Title: Beyond Visibility: Considering the Image in the Post-Photographic Era, 2019
- Chair, Public Art and Political Change, 107th Annual College Art Association (CAA) Conference, New York, NY, 2019
- Chair, Disciplinary Distinctions: Art History/Visual Studies/Studio Art, 106th Annual CAA Conference, Los Angeles, CA, 2018
- Chair/Moderator, Slow Motion: Painting in the Age of the Screen, Riddell Hall, Queen’s University Belfast, sponsored by the Painting Research Group at the Belfast School of Art, Ulster University, 2016
- Published Essay, Painting in Retrograde in Big Red & Shiny Journal, Vol.2, Issue 21, June-July 2014
- Presenter, Re-contextualizing Painting in the Digital Age, 102nd Annual CAA Conference, Chicago, IL. Paper Title: "Painting in the Age of the Screen”, 2014
- Co-Chair*, Reframing Painting: A Call for a New Critical Dialogue, 101st Annual CAA Conference, New York, NY; *with Professor Lance Winn, The University of Delaware, 2013
- Published Essay, Taming the Uncontrollable in Clayton Colvin: Space Mountain, Beta Pictoris/Maus Contemporary, Birmingham, AL, 2013.
- Chair, Health and Safety in the Artist Studio, 99th Annual CAA Conference, New York, NY, 2012
- Presenter, The Object of Nostalgia, 98th Annual CAA Conference, Chicago, IL. Paper Title: "The Interstice Between the Sentimental and Cynical Act of Painting”, 2010
- Presenter, Painting Open Studio Session, 96th Annual CAA Conference, Dallas, TX. Paper Title: Navigating the Gulf Between Compulsion and Irony in Contemporary Painting, 2008
- Chair, Pushing the Envelope: Contemporary Strategies for Painting, SECAC Annual Conference, Charleston, WV, 2007
- Chair*, Painting and Plurality: Schisms,-ism's and the Difficulty of Definition, 95th Annual CAA Conference, New York, NY; *with Professor Lance Winn, The University of Delaware, 2007
- External Programme Evaluator, National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), USA
