For me, creating art is deeply personal, it is loosely autobiographical, therapeutic, and the answer for everything: in every sense of the meaning of ‘everything.’
My art doesn’t illustrate something, it is that something. That something is ...
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For me, creating art is deeply personal, it is loosely autobiographical, therapeutic, and the answer for everything: in every sense of the meaning of ‘everything.’
My art doesn’t illustrate something, it is that something. That something is nuances of nuances of a frozen moment of an emotion that is universally ineffable. It is like smelling the air on a certain spring day that smells like spring, but smells like no other day you’ve smelt, and the smell correlates to a feeling; this particular feeling can never be described as it is intrinsically terminally unique.
As Jackson Pollack once said, “There is no accident, just as there is no begin-
ning and no end.” I too deny the accident. An accident is seen as an error in perfection however within art, imperfection becomes beautiful as a result of its errors. It has been said “to err is human,” and I couldn’t agree more.
I paint a lot of geometric shapes and what may appear to be straight line-work. I
do the best I can, but don't turn back if a line gets shaky, that little shake now gives my work a human element. It doesn’t matter what my starting subject was, allowing this human element to exist creates beauty.
One may have no idea what a songwriter or musician is actually saying with a song, but this doesn’t stop them from feeling what that song represents to them. Just as you can be uninformed about the life event that inspired the origin of my painting but still feel what that work emotes and how you relate to it.
What we don't understand in nature we can break down the natural visual work using geometry. It's the easiest means to describe a complex universe and define what we call thought, emotion, and sentience. I am ever so slowly, yet never quite solving these geometric equations through my paintings which have no beginning and no end.
Education:
Studied at University of Massachusetts Boston
Awards & Distinctions:
Honorable Mention for Fine Art @ The Woven Tale Press2019
Annual Hamptons Competitions
Award Website: https://www.thewoventalepress.net/2019/11/04/wtp2019-honorable-mentions/
Professional/Teaching Experience:
Asst. Teacher at University of Massachusetts
Exhibitions:
Connecting Worlds: Light, Color, and Emotion (works by Todd Brugman & Nedret Andre) @ Piano Craft Gallery2019
Boston, MA, USA
The Piano Craft Gallery presents 'Connecting Worlds:' an exhibition which explores through color and abstract art forms ways in which we're linked to each other and the world around us. Through the work of two Boston artists, Brugman and Andre, using distinct methodologies, straight-line geometrical work and gestural strokes, both exude passion, mastery of their craft, beauty, and artistry. On display this month is a not to be missed emotionally alluring, color packed, and personally moving exhibit.
Geometric Emotionalism @ Evie Studio 2019
Boston, MA, USA
I don't paint something, my paintings are the something -- Todd Brugman
In this show via a body of 12 oil paintings Brugman continued to explore emoting ineffable nuances universal via the precise arrangement of geometric shapes and the intrinsic color "value and chroma" they need to be in order for the viewer to relate. He continues his mastery of precise painting yet does not fix anything that would be seen as as a flaw as to him him that is one of many elements that allows something as mathematical as geometry to emote these powerful universal feelings. The errors give the work it's humanity. To err is to be human as has been said. These works will be on display through June and July. Come see Brugman's mastery of causing emotional reaction via paint in person.
Artistic Influences:
Wassily Kandinsky
Sol LeWitt
Willem de Kooning
Piet Mondrian