Bryan Seay
Painting, drawing, clay. Atlanta.

"Something blooming where it has no business blooming.”

STATEMENT

We build our cities under volcanoes, on the coast, on the fault line, in the floodplain. We know what's coming. It comes, it takes everything, and we clear the lot and build again in the same spot. I've never gotten over that. Almost everything I make is about it.

So my work is crowded. Figures leaning on each other, threatening each other, eating each other. Stones stacked above a sleeping city, holding a position they can't hold forever. And then, right in the middle of the trouble — flowers. Bright color. Something blooming where it has no business blooming.

People usually laugh first. Good. I want the work to be fun to look at. Stay another minute and you'll catch what's actually going on in there. Both things are true at the same time, and that's the point. It's what it feels like to live somewhere that could kill you.

I've spent a lot of time out of the country — Europe, Costa Rica, anywhere I could get to — looking at how other people make figures. Most of it made by people who never called themselves artists. That's in everything I do now. It's why my characters look the way they look.

Clay is where it comes out rawest. Clay is mud, and mud is primal. I build by hand, piece by piece, and the figures show up already arguing.

Lately I'm drawing every day, and painting is pulling at me again. It always comes back around.

BIO

Bryan Seay is an artist in Atlanta working in painting, drawing, and clay. He has lived in the city since he was two.

He received his BFA from the Atlanta College of Art in 1993, on an individualized major he built around computer art — printmaking and metal sculpture on one side, animation on the other. From there came a lab at Georgia Tech where art and emerging technology were colliding, a season on the crew restoring the Fox Theatre, and twenty-five years designing and animating for large Atlanta companies, with a studio running the entire time. He works in clay at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, has traveled widely in Europe and Central America, and has shown paintings, photography, and sculpture throughout the Southeast.

His studio is at Blue Mark Studios, the West Midtown church he founded in 2008 as an artist cooperative, gallery, and event space.

AVAILABLE WORK

Most of what you see here is for sale, and there's usually more in the studio than on this page. If something catches you, reach out — I'll send you dimensions, price, and better photographs than a phone can manage. Commissions considered.

STUDIO VISITS

By appointment only. The studio is at Blue Mark Studios, 892 Jefferson Street NW, in Atlanta's West Midtown. Clay never photographs the way it looks in your hand, so if you're anywhere close, come see it in person.

CONTACT

Seayart@bluemarkstudios· @seayart on Instagram