Brian Kershisnik
Brian T. Kershisnik is a well-known artist and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon Church. Because his father worked as a petroleum geologist, Kershisnik grew up living abroad in several disparate locations: Luanda, Angola; Bangkok, Thailand; Conroe, Texas; and Islamabad, Pakistan. He attended the University of Utah for a year and then served a mission for the LDS Church in Denmark. He then studied art at Brigham Young University and completed a special six-month program in London. After doing graduate studies in Austin, Texas, he and his family moved to Kanosh, Utah. He now lives in Provo, Utah, with his wife, Suzanne, and three children, but continues to paint in his beautiful Kanosh studio.
Kershisnik's paintings include elements of devotion, enlightenment, and whimsy. He especially is able to capture the intuitive relationships that women share with each other, sometimes with males as quizzical on-lookers. Kershisnik comments on one elusive element, and that is grace. This element, since it is somewhat beyond his control, makes him a participant in his art, rather than a controller or manager. He has said,
- "Although my skills of observation and craft are good, there is a fundamental element that makes a picture succeed that is outside of my control. It is a gift of grace every time it occurs and is as surprising to me as it is to any viewer taken by an image. This element eludes me every time I try to control it. I firmly believe that when a painting succeeds, I have not created it, but rather participated in it."
