Brian W. Brush Winston Wächter Fine Art Seattle
Brian W. Brush’s work explores the phenomenal visual effects that emerge from the interaction of light, material, and geometric structure in art. He is deeply interested in how volume, thickness, pattern, and translucency of material can entangle with light to produce ethereal and illusory beauty. Driving the exploration of these effects is a fundamental sensitivity to site, where each piece is a unique opportunity to participate in the construction of meaning in the public domain. The result is a vital and dynamic material platform capable of animating the feelings, behaviors, and curiosities of a diverse public which ultimately contribute to cultural resilience. Brush has twice been awarded the Public Art Network Year in Review Award and his work has appeared in numerous publications including Metropolis Magazine, Interior Design Magazine, The Architect’s Newspaper, ArchDaily, Make Magazine, FastCoDesign, Atlantic Cities, Wired Design, and Phaidon Press’s recent book “Room:Inside Contemporary Interiors.” He recently presented his work as an invited speaker at the Media Architecture Summit in Toronto in September 2016. Brush studied architecture as a Presidential Scholar at Montana State University earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Design. He was awarded the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Scholarship to continue his graduate studies at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), where he received a Master of Architecture and a Master of Science in Urban Planning. He is also a PhD candidate and Fulbright Scholar conducting research with McGill University School of Architecture’s Facility for Architectural Research in Media and Mediation (FARMM).
Cover: Voxel Cloud 206.652.5855
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Voxel Cloud (2017) The Pierce Building, San Jose, California Voxel Cloud is a three-dimensional illumination texture designed to diffuse the roofline into the San Jose sky through a cloud of clustered light voxels draped atop the building. It is a dynamic illumination system is composed of an array of datadriven RGB LED’s contained and connected through a matrix of reflective, metallic cube frames. Each frame is identical and when repeated in aggregate the collection generates a visually complex yet site-responsive structure capable of adapting to the building’s physical elements. The frames create a refractive medium through which the emitted light reflects, propagating multidimensional light through the city skyline. As a singular composition of illuminated form Voxel Cloud is monumental and unique, capable of augmenting the San Jose skyline at the urban scale – a true civic landmark.
Growth (2016) The Pierce Lobby, San Jose, CA Growth is a permanent sculptural mobile artwork at The Pierce Building that’s an aggregate of anodized aluminum pieces suspended in space to resemble a three-dimensional tree in dialogue with an outdoor tree sculpture previously installed. It creates a reflective light source for the lobby space and anchors the social gathering area for residents and visitors. Photos by Scott DuBose
Hearst Cloud (2015)
Hearst Elementary School, Washington D.C.
Hearst Cloud is a suspended artwork composed of approximately 400 iridescent plastic squares arranged in a cloud formation which are painted with student handprints using stained glass paint. It’s intended to be a tangible representation of the student body - a physical signature of the school in place and time. Hearst cloud floats gently, reflecting and refracting colorful light and casting color across the adjacent walls and floors. The result is a departure from the usual tech/media-enriched artifacts for an elementary school more interested in simple representations than complex data visualization.
OMI Rock (2013) Omi International Arts Center, Ghent, NY Omi Rock Pavilion is a large faceted structure situated on a hilltop overlooking panoramic views of the Catskill Mountains. Operating at the intersection of art and architecture, the Omi Rock is at once a formal gesture and a space-making structure that connects the experience of viewing and inhabiting the landscape simultaneously. The formal inspiration for the piece comes from the subsurface geology of the area - the rocky outcroppings scattered throughout Omi's campus that emerge from the ground. As a constructed rock outcropping, the pavilion plays with the question of what is natural and what is artificial, inverting buried geologic mass into a soaring wireframe skeleton. From afar, the pavilion appears as a drawing on the landscape, a tracing of the site’s invisible geology. From inside, the faceted wooden structure frames views of the landscape that make it appear as the artificial backdrop for a new nature the rock manifests. Visitors are encouraged to sit in the pavilion, experiencing it both for its form as well as its function. The wooden facets that comprise the structure will cast changing shadows and striped patterns depending on the sunlight and time of day.
Episodic (2015) Beit Ha'ir Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel (Unbuilt Proposal) Artist’s conceptual notes... The Mind Neural Network Synapse > Firing Foresigh/Hindsight > Memory > EPISODIC Memory Memory as projected image superimposed with the abstract formation and illumination of potential futures... Function of media architecture in formation of collective urban memory... Instantaneously linking past and future...self-reflective image of the city and for the city... Taking historical imagery and analyzing congruent structures between past and present as future construct...
Filament Mind (2013) Teton County Library, Jackson, Wyoming with Yong Ju Lee and Noa Younse Filament Mind is a human information-driven installation designed to visualize the collective curiosities and questions of Teton County Library visitors through a dynamic and interactive spatial sculpture. Whenever any Wyoming public library visitor anywhere in the state performs a search of the library catalog from a computer, Filament Mind illuminates that search in a flash of color and light through glowing bundles of fiber optic cables. Each of the 1000 fiber optic cables hanging above (totaling over 5 miles of cable) corresponds to a call number in the Dewey Decimal System, which organizes the library’s collection into approximately 1000 categories of knowledge. These category titles are displayed in text on the lobby’s south and north walls at the termination points of the fiber optic cables. Teton County Library will visualize the thoughts of all its visitors through a living, visual archive of their questions. Filament Mind will literally be the mind of the library and, by extension, that of the community.
Mountain (2015) Unbuilt, 2015 "The beauty and charm of the wilderness are his for the asking, for the edges of the wilderness lie close beside the beaten roads of the present travel." Roosevelt High School, Washington D.C.
Microcosm 2013 (Unbuilt) Microcosm is a proposal for an interactive permanent public art installation in a prominent science museum. It is inspired by numerous phenomenon in the universe including the formation and composition of galaxies, logarithmic mathematics, quantum mechanics, string theory, swarm behavior, and the holographic principle. It is composed of 3,141 "voxels" that combine to form a 3-dimensional information display that is simultaneously cubic, triangular, tetrahedral, and hexagonal. It reconciles, both formally and conceptually, the rational geometric primitive with the non-linear, indeterminate, and algorithmic, or, the ideal with the actual. Visualization: RVARQ Nicolas Wehncke
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