Brian Crawford was born on September 11, 1967 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. During his early childhood, his parents encouraged him to freely express himself through art. He quickly became captivated with drawing, and could always be found with pencil and paper in hand. It was this early exposure to art that became the foundation for his future.
Throughout his schooling, art was always his favorite subject. He dreamed of eventually going to art school to be formally trained in drawing and painting, but his dreams of creating art were temporarily put on hold as he entered college to explore the world of computer programming. In May of 1990, he received his Bachelor of Business Administration in Management Information Systems, and for the next several years his focus turned to his career as a software engineer. During this time, his desire to create went dormant.
It wasn't until after his marriage to Kate in July of 2000 that Brian began to seriously think about creating art again. At the urging of his wife, he answered the call that had started burning in his heart. He immediately enrolled in a painting class. That initial class fueled his desire to create, and he continued to take painting and drawing classes to further feed this desire. With each class that he completed his skill increased as did his desire to paint.
In 2005, Brian had the unique opportunity of returning to school full-time to begin completing the art degree of which he had dreamed so long ago. While at CCCCD and UNT, his skills continued to increase as he has learned from artists such as Matthew Bourbon, Rob Erdle, Merry Fuhrer and Carter Skaggs.
Today, Brian continues to work as a software engineer, but it is when he is creating works of art or pursuing his BFA in drawing and painting that his heart truly comes alive.
Brian's paintings generally contain references to either the human figure or animals, but regardless of the subject matter each painting will always contain text that gives the work added depth of meaning. He strives for an essence of realism in his paintings, but it is not the most important detail on which he wants the viewer to focus. Brian wants the viewer to know first and foremost that they are viewing a work of art. He will intentionally leave brush marks when applying gesso that serve to add depth to the painting as transparent layers of color are added one on top of another, and he will scrape and scrub the canvas to reveal the many different layers of color that lie below the surface in an attempt to give the painting the life he desires.
In addition to receiving third place in the Deep Ellum Mural Competitions of 2007 and 2008, Brian also completed a commission of three 4' x 4' paintings for Wok Box restaurants in Seattle.
