Artist Gallery Statement — Brian Dunning

2026

“I have never been able to stop making art — it is how I process the world and return to what matters.” At the center of my practice is a belief I have carried since childhood: “Play is the portal to curiosity, wonder, and joy.” That conviction shapes everything, from the materials I use to the marks I leave on the canvas.

My work operates on what I call the “discipline of non-discipline”: a commitment to trusting the unknown, maintaining organic flow, and treating spontaneity as a guiding principle rather than an accident. I paint to stay present — to access the emotional directness and instinctive responsiveness that formal training can sometimes train out of us.

Process is central to the work. “Active play removes inhibitions that restrict my creative flow, allowing me to discover my authentic voice and feel alive.” Over time, I developed a practice of sustained motion: “I kept painting and painting over things, whether I liked them or not, because I wanted to stay in motion… by using different tools, it kind of forced things to change and then my responses changed.” The resulting surfaces — layered, textured, built through accumulation and response — are a record of that ongoing conversation.

I want viewers to feel that conversation when they stand in front of the work. The color, texture, and layering are intended as an open invitation: to slow down, engage intuitively, and experience the joy and wonder infused in each piece.

My heroes — Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, Robert Rauschenberg — taught me that painting could hold contradictions and still sing. I studied at Cornish Institute in the 1980s under Charles Stokes, Norie Sato, John Overton, Bill Hoppe, and David Nechak, who taught me that vision comes from within.

Brian is an artist with over 30 years of experience in abstract painting, encaustic painting, and mixed-media collage. His work has been published in several books on collage: “Creative Collage” by Nita Leland, “Collage Techniques” by Gerald Brommer, and “Artists' Artsembles” by Color Q. In 2018, he was awarded an NGAE Fellowship in which he studied with Paula Roland in Santa Fe, NM.

Trained in the Montessori Method, I have long believed in honoring the curiosity of my inner child as a creative resource. For the past seven years, I have taught encaustic painting at the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina. "After 30 years teaching Interactive Design — web, motion graphics, and animation — in higher education, I retired and returned full-time to my studio practice.” I am building a sustainable professional studio practice and reclaiming my place as a working artist.