This Year's Featured Artist - Brad Faegre
Brad Faegre has never been content communicating in just one artist’s medium or a handful of subjects. As a result his wide-ranging interests have found expression in watercolor, acrylics, oils, pastels and a variety of drawing mediums. In subjects diverse as racehorse jockeys, airport runways, glacial lakes, and evening fireflies his expressive consistency is hallmark.
Designated Master Pastelist by the Pastel Society of America in 1992, Brad has received numerous awards in competition and his art has appeared in national and international magazines and books including American Artist, International Pastel Artist, The Best of Pastel 2, The Best of Drawing and Sketching and Acrylic Painting Techniques.
Grand Canyon and Yosemite National Parks have held exhibitions of Brad’s artwork. He was Yosemite Artist-in-Residence in 1990 and his artwork is part of the permanent collections of Yosemite National Park and Yosemite & Curry Company. His painting Storm over the South Rim was one of twenty works chosen for a special exhibition celebrating Grand Canyon National Park’s 75th Anniversary.
The artist’s interests in railroad subjects have brought him additional recognition, including exhibitions at the California State Railroad Museum, Penn State University and an Amtrak sponsored exhibition at the Los Angeles County Fair. The Dutch Railway Museum commissioned Brad to paint its historic steam locomotive the De Arend and closer to home the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce had the artist create a painting, Daybreak at a Metrolink Station, to commemorate a new commuter train service in Los Angeles.
Scenes of notable golf holes and golfers’ portraits are another of the artist’s many interests. His 1992 painting, On the Tee with Jack Nicklaus illustrates the book, Bel-Air Country Club: A Living Legend. Adding to his golf art credentials he has created paintings for many, including San Francisco Golf Club, PGA WEST Resorts, Riviera Country Club, Jack Nicklaus, Bel-Air Country Club, the PGA of Southern California and USGA.
Brad’s lifelong focus has been on creating form that amplifies his subject. Nowhere is this more obvious than in his drawings and paintings of the human figure. A recent suite of 12 paintings for St. Jude Memorial Hospital portrays health care-giving through the choreography of patients’ and medical professionals’ interactions. But whether the artist is painting a musician or sketching an athlete, expressing his feeling for a train or tide pool, his subjects exist in and outside the moment. In motion or static, his art is always dynamic and evocative by design.
Brad attended Pitzer College on a scholarship and a grant and received his degree from California State University, Fullerton. He worked as a graphic designer, illustrator, cartoonist and portrait painter before turning his focus in 1987 to creating works that better express his personal interests and passions.
