Rising Stars: Meet Brian Wooden

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Wooden.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I came up in the skateboard and graffiti scene in Columbus, OH. I ended up at art school and then got sucked into the corporate design world and decided to leave and do my own thing. Since then, I’ve been focusing on developing my voice as an artist and pushing the scale of my work on walls and fine-tuning it in galleries.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I’ve wanted to quit many times in the past. I think any intense relationship has a wide ‘love/hate’ spectrum and a relationship with art is no different. When it’s good, it’s great, and when it’s bad, well…

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m a visual artist. It’s taken a while to figure out how to describe what I do while leaving enough space to explore all the things I want to explore. It can be easy to label yourself as a ‘painter’ or ‘illustrator’ etc. And subconsciously pigeonhole yourself.

I’ve been focused on large-scale ‘street art’ work for the past couple of years but have recently been focusing more on gallery work and even getting into sculpture.

I’ve been having a lot of fun exploring sort of a ‘literal, modern cubism’ in my work lately, taking familiar motifs and breaking them down to the parts of them I find most exciting, and putting them back together in a sort of stream of the consciousness type method.

Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
Probably the time my dad rescued me from that bison stampede.

He was killed shortly after by his brother who dropped him off a cliff into the same stampede he just saved me from, but that led to me embarking on a long journey of self-discovery where I met a cast of zany characters and sang Elton John songs.

I eventually returned home a defeated my uncle and Matthew Broderick is my voice.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: Brianwooden.co
• Instagram: @brianwooden