About Me
Brent Watkinson received his BA at Missouri Southern State College in 1982. After working as a photographer for a year, he began interning and working as an illustrator. Two years later, Brent was represented nationally in Kansas City, Los Angeles, and New York City, and was an illustrator in private practice for twenty-three years.
In 1992, he was invited to become a member of the NASA Arts Program, and has since completed two paintings for NASA's permanent collection. A few of Brent's clients include: American Express, Contadina Products, Cook's Illustrated Magazine, Geffen Records, NASA, Putnam Publishers, Science Magazine, Sony Music, U.S. Pentagon, William Morrow Publishing, Time/Warner, The Franklin Mint, Doubleday/Bantaam Books, and Random House. His work has been in the Society of Illustrators New York, the Society of Illustrators Los Angeles, and Communication Arts. His digital work was featured in an article in Step-by-Step Electronic Design Magazine.
In the recent past, Brent has been a part-time instructor at the Kansas City Art Institute, and full time faculty and co-director at The Illustration Academy, as well as The Art Department. The Illustration Academy is a seminar program, based in Kansas City, but also based three years in Richmond, VA, at Virginia Commonwealth University, and five years in Sarasota, FL, at Ringling College of Art and Design.
Brent also was a computer programmer for a national company, writing web applications and algorithms for businesses in 2015-2016.
A licensed Apple Developer from 2011-2016, Brent had a total of eight iPhone and iPad apps in the Apple App Store.
Brent has written several computer programs using code to produce images that are a type of cooperation between “human and computer”. The programs run based on inputs from Brent, but the computer is given permission to inject random elements of code and math to produce results that cannot be replicated by the human or the computer on their own.
Brent is currently teaching at the Kansas City Art Institute and producing a podcast titled "EveryDay Artist", which can be found on this website, or by searching for "everyday artist" on iTunes, the iPhone Podcast app, and the Stitcher app. Click here for more info about the EveryDay Artist podcast.
Get in Touch
Recently written about Brent by the Sager-Braudis Gallery.
Brent Watkinson is an accomplished and widely-published illustrator (with such clilents as NASA, Time Warner, and American Express, among many others) who brings a deep understanding of composition and color theory to his studio paintings.
While the specific scene or subject depicted is the draw for his viewer, Watkinson is really most interested in mark-making. He treats each composition as a challenge to balance conrol with release, tidiness with chaos, and precision with strong evidence of the artist's hand.
Painterly and slightly impressionistic, each of his works conveys more than would a snapshot of the same subject, as his expert wielding of color, movement, and balance lend character and depth to each.