Shh! He has a very BIG project under wraps
Be on the lookout for big things this year from Chattanooga-based artist James Bruneau. He is best known for his iconic painted portraits of pop culture icons, and his outlook is as unique as his work, which is a delightful blend of realism and abstraction.
Though Bruneau has been making art for most of his life, he feels like he is just getting started.
“Um, I don’t think I’ve had my start, actually,” he explains. “I decided a couple years ago to devote all my time to art, and I started calling myself a professional, but it all seems very ‘fake it until you make it’ to me. Everything ends up being a crash course: producing work, promotion on social media, ‘branding’ yourself, securing shows.”
He believes he’s not alone in this attitude, either.
“I think a lot of artists feel this way. This is probably going to sound stupid, but it’s hard to view starts and finishes if you only view yourself as a pretender. I think that’s the mindset a lot of artists I know operate within. Imposter syndrome is a constantly lurking harpy.”
Bruneau was passionate about art from a young age. When he was in elementary school, he was drawing in the hallway and a kid walked by and said his drawing sucked.
“So we got into a fist fight,” he remembers. “Sitting in the principal’s office after the fight, he made us shake hands and promise to be friends. I was the best man in his wedding almost 30 years later. In hindsight, the drawing probably did suck.”
He went to City High, attending the performing arts program. His first art teacher there, Scott Leach, pushed him and taught him a lot of invaluable lessons.
“He gave me an incredible and varied base to build from,” Bruneau says. “I earned an academic scholarship to Loyola University and majored in art.”
One of the hardest things he deals with is trying not to be influenced by other artists.
“I know I am influenced subconsciously, but I don’t actively seek out a person’s art and look to it for inspiration,” he notes. “For me personally, it feels like it would be very easy to fall into imitation. Anything I come across organically I’m absolutely willing to digest, and I don’t run from art museums. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
Bruneau explains that he constantly struggles with inspiration, and doesn’t advise anyone to emulate him on this, because he’s pretty sure it’s “wrong and dumb”. Even so, he does have a number of favorite artists whom he admires, including Dave McKean, Wayne White, Fiona Staples, Odd Nerdrum, Albrecht Dürer, and Hieronymus Bosch.
Speaking of Wayne White, Bruneau had the opportunity to work side by side with Wayne at Wayne-O-Rama in 2017.
“I am not a team player. Not even remotely,” he says. “But that is what that project called for, and the folks involved in that project made it very easy for me to get over my hang-ups. I was actually able to get out of my own head, and I feel like I briefly got into Wayne’s. It was weird and rad and rewarding.”
Bruneau says he learned a lot and made some truly excellent friends. He felt good about helping to bring something unique and atypical to Chattanooga, where he notes that a lot of things are done by the book.
Thought he typically paints with acrylic and/or watercolor, Bruneau wants to do more with oils in the future.
“I know how to do a variety of printmaking processes, and have dabbled a little bit in sculpture,” he says. “I’ve got a pretty strong drawing base. I think diversity is one of my major strengths as an artist, so I never really want to do any one thing for too long.”
He feels that art is complicated—and also a bit “dumb”.
“It’s a lot of things, and I feel it’s important for art to be multifaceted and challenging. My philosophy is to keep art dumb and beautiful and complex and weird. I know that sounds completely nonsensical, but art doesn’t make much sense sometimes either.”
Bruneau is currently working on a large-scale commission and has more or less sequestered himself from society. It’s taking him longer to finish than anticipated, though. When asked for details, he demurs, explaining that the project is still under wraps.
“It’s meant to be uplifting and noble and hopeful,” he says. “Trying to convey those concepts right now is especially difficult, but it also feels more important than ever to try. I’m exceptionally glad that I was asked to do this painting, but it has been more challenging than anything else I have attempted.”
You can learn more about Bruneau's work on his website at prehistoricrobot.com or by following him on Facebook at Prehistoric Robot.