Erin O'Brien-Kenna
Bloomfield, NJ
About
ABOUT ME
I am an artist who specializes in photo-realism in oils. I have been drawing people and clothing since I could hold a crayon, that always being my prime subject of interest.
Graduating high school with a love and passion for all things fashion, I attended the legendary Traphagen School of Design in Manhattan on a scholarship award, when I took second place in the Traphagen-sponsored East Coast Design Contest in the early 80’s, and spent two years majoring in Illustration.
There, I learned the old-school methods of hands-on Fashion Illustration in watercolors and pencils on paper and board, in a time when Photoshop and Illustrator were merely a dream… but it was to my great advantage, as one had to create their art by hand and to perfection the first time around, or else, start from scratch. The school was influential in teaching me to hone my craft of executing fabrics and textures. I also at that time had great inspiration in the art of Antonio Lopez, Stavrinos, and Patrick Nagel as my mentors.
I started experimenting with oils on canvas in 1986, with no formal training in oil painting whatsoever… I was so inexperienced and lacking in knowledge of the medium, I had to ask another artist what turpentine was for. Once I got my hand in it, however, a new world opened up to me, and I’ve been painting ever since; people and animals primarily, yet my great obsession is painting fabrics.
The Fashion Industry has been my bread and butter for years, working as a Graphic Designer, generating clothing and fabric patterns on the computer, but it pales in comparison to the satisfaction of creating real physical works of art.
Historical pictures have taken my interest as subject matter; an old discarded photograph reproduced on a large canvas brings a distant era back to life, and makes each soul in the painting significant once again. I have found that people make a strong connection with my paintings, as they are instantly approachable.
My work has been shown at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, Montclair Art Festivals and Parkway Studios Art Show in Bloomfield, as well as various galleries.
- Experience:
- 20+ years
- Education:
- Fashion Institute of Technology
