Today we’d like to introduce you to Carel Brest Van Kempen
Hi Carel, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve had a strong compulsion to draw wildlife for as long as I can remember. I grew up in Emigration Canyon, near Salt Lake City, Utah, a community that was surrounded by wilderness. My fascination with nature was encouraged by having such easy access to endless acres to explore, and when I wasn’t out looking for wildlife I was drawing it, and when I wasn’t drawing it I was thinking about drawing it. As a kid I carried a sketchbook while hiking, compiling drawings of local bird species, with grandiose notions of becoming a latter-day Audubon. By the time I entered university, it was starting to become clear that my desires to be an artist outstripped my skills at being one, and I studied biology for a few years before dropping out. I worked a series of low-paying jobs, mostly in restaurants, and continued to paint in my spare time and try to get my paintings shown–always without success. For a long time the quality of my work failed to rise above mediocrity, but for some reason I persisted. At age 25, I submitted my six best paintings to a local juried show of art depicting birds–something right up my alley, but all six paintings were rejected (and I assure you, the jury was not picking on me). It would be about another three years before I started producing work of a quality that suggested a career as a painter might be a possibility. Once that happened, I dove into the deep end and never looked back; focusing all of my energy into producing artwork and trying to get it shown in the most prominent way possible.
For my first show, I drove my rickety ’67 Dodge van with no heater through blizzard conditions across the country to a venue in St. Louis, where the biggest snowstorm of the previous 20 years had paralyzed the city. It was an expo-style show. The artists set up their booths, then spent the weekend sitting in the empty hall chatting to one another. I made no sales, just a bunch of new friends. From there I drove to Kansas City for one of the biggest wildlife art expos in the country. I sold a small painting and received an award, netting myself a cool $450 on a trip that cost $1,500. On the way home, I ran out of gas and money in the town of Roosevelt, Utah. It was late at night, so I pulled into a parking lot to sleep for a while and figure out what to do in the morning. A cop came by to check me out, and bought two prints from me for $15. I put that in my tank and drove home.
For the next couple of years I continued working like this, always on the financial edge. Eventually it became clear that I’d have to get a job or become homeless. I chose the latter. My belongings were all given away or put into storage, and that ’67 Dodge van became my home/studio for the next three years. As my work started being seen more in galleries, expos and magazines, a small market for it began to build. Eventually I was able to start renting a room in a friend’s basement and from there to purchase a home of my own.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I would say the road has been fairly smooth, with a pothole here and there, but nothing disastrous. It’s been a longer road than I expected, though, and establishing myself took quite a while. Even so, the moments where I considered altering my course were few and far between. My paintings are quirky, in a genre where quirkiness is a rarity. This has advantages as well as disadvantages. Most of the art-buying public doesn’t quite know what to make of my work, and it’s never been easy to sell. On the other hand, it gets noticed. The critics, jurors and gatekeepers have mostly been quite kind to me, and they’ve been a real asset. I’m pretty much a “cult” artist, with a small but devoted fanbase. All in all, I’m very lucky to be able to spend my days doing what I love the most.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a painter, and virtually all of my work features wildlife. My paintings often tell little ecological stories about how creatures make their living, how they interact with one another and with their environment. The situations I create are often hypothetical ones. Where many artists paint as a way to share experiences they’ve had, I often paint as a way to see things I want to see, but could see in no other way. I’m often drawn to unusual points of view. I work in a very detailed style that is crisp and rather hard-edged. I prefer to draw my subjects without reference, pulling them out of my head, then gathering reference materials to correct my inaccuracies once the composition is laid out. I find that when I start with reference materials, that limits what I’m able to do. While many of my paintings depict reality, other work is more surrealistic, often commenting on the way we view the natural world.
Another quality that sets my work apart: I tend to depict unusual animals that aren’t often portrayed. One of the hallmarks of nature is its staggering diversity, and I think it’s a shame that the wildlife art canon as a whole is anything but diverse. I try in my own small way to remedy that problem a bit.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
Utah is a beautiful state with a wide range of natural habitats. Having lived here all my life, I understand it better than any other place, and I love exploring it. Now that I’m approaching my late sixties, I’m developing a sense of history, and am noticing a lot of interesting trends in the wildlife I see, which casts a new and important light on my view of things. I bought a home in the city, because a person can live a lot more lightly on the environment when they’re located in a place that’s already completely devoted to housing Humans. There’s still a lot of wilderness that’s close enough for me to bicycle there from my place in Salt Lake City.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.cpbrestvankempen.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hydrocorax/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carel.vankempen/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/hydrocorax
Image Credits
Steve Chindgren
