Artist Profile for Bren Quiett Reisch

Bren's work has its roots in Abstract Expressionism, automatic and spontaneous nonobjectivity combined with mystical interpretations of color and line. Each painting is an energetic assertion of her personality, individuality and identity. Her fascination with texture, and the chance effects of manipulating paint and the painting surface in ways other than by the brush, make each work a brilliant, intensive exploration.

Bren's versatility in painting is evident in her work. Many pieces offer bold strokes of primary colors of unparalleled richness, in jarring contrasts and conflicts, densely and dashingly painted with spontaneity, leaving each stroke or splash unmodified. In these works the painted surface is just that -- a reflection of Bren's intense experience of paint and color...the process of painting becomes automatic and direct. Colors seem to explode, limited only by the boundaries with the painting, spontaneous and unconstrained, appearing to have absorbed the artist into its swirl and to have painted itself.

Though this type of painting, often referred to as "action painting," may seem formless at first we need only reflect upon the vast new vocabulary of forms that the surface of the earth itself yields to modern eyes and imagination. As in the world around us, the complex weaving of endless and intricate relationships of living forms are given a visual presence in Bren's work.

Bren's work reflects her striving for an unplanned immediacy and directness, resulting in an effect of spontaneous freshness of statement. As Jackson Pollack said, "...it doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement." A perfect description of Bren's work.

• “Earth’s Energies” (above) published in “Exploring Color” by Nita Leland Revised Edition
• “In Remembrance of Me” (limited edition print) published in England (magazine and calendar)

• The Ohio Watercolor Society
• Cincinnati Art Club
• Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club Inc., NY
• The Women’s Art Club of Cincinnati
• Watercolor Society of North Carolina
• Wake Visual Arts Association, Raleigh, NC
• The Wilmington Art Association, NC.

Bren earned a Commercial Art/Interior Design degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and studied at Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio. Her work has received awards at the Viewpoint '96-Cincinnati Art club; North Carolina Azalea Festival Shows 1994, 1996; Watercolor Society of North Carolina and the Franklin Square Gallery, Associated Artists of Southport, NC. Her art is held in corporate and private collections throughout the United States and in Canada and Scotland.