Meet Bobby Brown, senior art major

Bobby Brown’s journey as an artist started at age 5. Growing up on the southwest / west side of Fresno, he didn’t have many options to practice or learn a range of different mediums. Pencils and paper torn out of either notepads or the backs of books were his earliest art mediums and the only way for him to explore and express his imagination.

He was exposed to printmaking through his friends Tessa Barretto and Brian Houtz while attending Fresno City College, where he studied with Professor Nicholas Spohrer. Bobby quickly developed an affinity
for the woodcut printmaking technique.

His artistic journey has continued in the Department of Art, Design, and Art History at Fresno State University, where Bobby reinvigorated the student printmaking club and embraced the creation of more complex and ambitious prints.

Bobby Brown’s artwork combines fairytales and pop culture with his experience growing up in Fresno, translating the lessons he’s learned from the people in his life while struggling through adversity and challenges. Bobby merges these elements to create a new visual story
documenting his feelings and thoughts while translating his personal narrative into a more universal or archetypal visual narrative, using characters from fairytales and pop culture (Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland) to obscure specific family and friends while speaking to his thoughts and feelings to find a deeper truth in his experiences.

These elements inspire the drawings, which act as a set of rules, while the cutting of his woodblocks is playful and expressive. The result is his complex reduction relief prints using split fountain rolled colors.

Bobby has shown at the Kings Center Gallery with the print guild, at the Fresno EOC LGBTQ Center, and has a print in McClain’s online gallery for the Daily Companion 2022. He was also one of the artists who created limited edition lithographs for Fresno State University President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval’s investiture in 2022.

by SADE JOHNSON

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