BRADFORD STEWART BIO

Bradford Stewart is an abstract painter living and working in Los Angeles. As a former composer and professional musician, his artwork is inspired by contemporary jazz, ethnic and avant-garde classical music. Stewart’s paintings are specified internationally by interior designers, architects, and art consultants for high-end residential, hospitality and corporate projects. His paintings are commissioned for specific installations and his work is being used in the television and film industry. Stewart studied art at the San Francisco Art Institute and California College of Arts and Crafts. He has had many solo and group exhibitions over the past 15 years.

Bradford Stewart freely admits he has always been a nonconformist. In his first career as a composer, singer and songwriter, he didn’t sell out by giving in to the image-crazed record companies that all too often commercialize its artists. Creating his own music was more important to him than packaging it.

Today, as an abstract painter, Stewart remains a maverick. While galleries have urged him to stay
within a particular style, he refuses to be pigeonholed. “I want the freedom to express myself in a
variety of different ways”, asserts the artist.  Apparently, his autonomous approach is working. One of the top selling artists in L.A., people typically buy several of Stewart’s pieces at one time because his multi-faceted artwork adds character to a space, giving it a look of continuity without the appearance of a lone artist.

Although Stewart transitioned from composer to painter nearly 15 years ago, music continues to be a major influence in his life.” Painting is a very physical process. To me, it’s very emotional. Music sets that up and keeps me in the right side of the brain,” says Stewart. The artist gets his best inspiration from progressive, Avant Garde jazz. Some of his favorites are the high energy, dissonant sounds of classical composer Ed Bland, musicians Michael Brecker, John McLauglin, Wayne Shorter and the late John Coltrane.

Another influence: His father, a painter, architect and prominent furniture designer. The younger Stewart was surrounded by creativity from an early age and it has had a significant influence on his life.

Unlike the stereotypical reclusive artist, Stewart loves interacting with designers and clients, often bringing multiple paintings to their spaces to see what works. He welcomes the opportunity to do commissioned work and was recently hired by internationally renowned interior designer, Sally Sirkin Lewis. The paintings were featured in Architectural Digest.

Stewart has a sense of overall feeling he wants to evoke, he never knows how each piece of art is going to turn out. In fact, many of the materials he uses-acrylics, enamels, resins, polyurethane, pearlescent paints- prevent him from having total control of the outcome. After about 20 layers, Stewarts’ paintings have an organic, rich-almost 3-dimentional-quality.