Kirkland Bray is a painter and collage artist whose work is deeply rooted in the use of found materials. Whether using worn-out texts or abandoned canvases, his creative process embraces discovery and transformation. “I have an affinity for finding a great old book with oxidized pages that I use as backgrounds for collages or a pile of discarded canvases. I also like repurposing paper and frames. I think they give my work an interesting starting point and a ‘vintage’ feel,” he says.
At the heart of Bray’s practice is a desire to push beyond his comfort zone, creating beauty from the decrepit, reinterpreting familiar spaces, and continuously evolving his approach. He has been painting on found surfaces for more than 20 years and began incorporating collage into his work in 2012.
Bray is as inspired by the hunt to find new materials as the challenge of executing and editing his work. He considers a piece finished when the combination of shapes, colors, and ideas come together like a puzzle and when the positive and negative space have equal say. “Many of my paintings expand upon my ‘Gathering’ series—works of surrealistic landscapes with peculiar masses of people. Many of these pieces evolve from recent travels and outdoor escapes where I find myself searching for sparks of inspiration in landscapes and quirkiness in nature. Some scenes become backdrops and some I sculpt and alter to fit an obnoxious number of humans,” he says.
Bray’s painting Hitchhiker Gathering is a continuation of the Gathering series. The setting is inspired by Route 66, one of the oldest numbered highways in the US, which runs through Arizona and New Mexico.
“It’s painted on found canvas, so the composition was somewhat informed by the markings on the canvas itself. The canvas had the shape of what looked like a distant mountain range already vaguely there, and I loosely painted it in and added a long road. Then the idea came to me to add an overwhelming number of hitchhikers on both sides without a car in sight,” he says.
His work conjures memories and evokes feelings that he hopes get viewers asking questions. Upon closer inspection, Hitchhiker Gathering shows two large groups hitchhiking in different directions on opposite sides of the road. What are the hitchhikers doing out in the high desert and where are they going en masse? Are they headed toward a pleasant destination, such as an outdoor concert, or are they immigrants fleeing troubles? Answers are left up to the imagination of the viewer. “I make art to see how far from my comfort zone I can go, to make something beautiful from something discarded, and to discover new directions in both process and subject,” he says.
Bray’s work is featured in “Alta Vista,” a two-person exhibition with Todd Koelmel that will be shown through April 27 at Upstairs at Small Talk in Woodstock. Koelmel’s Reservoir Sunset appeared on the cover of the January 2020 issue.
Both painters push boundaries by infusing landscapes with abstraction, surrealism, and alternate perspectives. Offering both a reflection of reality and a window into imagination, their works playfully reconsider the history of painting. “It’s a striking show, with our works creating contrast while sharing underlying connections—both explore landscapes and employ similar color palettes despite our otherwise divergent approaches,” Bray says.
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This article appears in April 2025.
