Bryan Brinkman Sketches

What are you trying to explore when you’re in the sketching phase of an artwork?

My initial goals are to create works that tell both my story and perspectives but are reduced into simpler forms that anyone can relate to. When sketching ideas, I'm usually pulling in visual ideas and then building them into commentary. I tend to keep these loose and quick, trying not to get stuck on one idea too long. Then I let them simmer and return to them and see which one sparks the most inspiration.

Your pieces create a shared visual world, including colors and symbols which recur. How does a symbol become adopted into your visual world?

USUALLY, NEW SYMBOLS ARE FORMED BECAUSE THEY HAVE A UNIVERSAL STORY OR MEANING IN A PIECE.

The following works are from the first volume of sketches, released November 2022.

Often I find myself drawn to images that are seen in the emoji lexicon because that's our universal visual language. Bringing those visuals back in future works helps link ideas from one piece to another.

Ice Cream Deconstructed is an early draft that became your later work, Downpour. What were your thoughts on including the ice cream cone initially, and what changed between the sketch and the final work?

Around that time I had been creating work about candy and candy packaging with my metaverse builds, and this piece played into that theme. I also was inspired by dada-ist work like "The Treachery of Images" by Magritte. I loved the idea of sprinkles coming from a cloud, which then transformed into colored raindrops in the final piece which fit better with my Cloudy Collection.