Preston Hollow commercial artist and graphic designer Brian Kerr is happy to finally make a return to his first love of fine art.
After decades in the field, including 17 years at the Dallas Morning News, he recently exhibited new work at Deborah Hartigan’s DHV Artworks gallery in the Design District. Kerr’s childhood love of drawing sprouted in part due to a need to express himself and communicate visually, as he was born largely deaf.
“I had a hearing problem, so I was pretty much deaf until I was five,” Kerr recalled. “I was reading lips, and so I just became more artistic. It kind of runs in the family. It was something that I just gravitated towards.”
Kerr notes that his mother painted all of the paintings displayed in their Michigan home, and his paternal grandmother was also artistic. By the time a couple of ear operations restored most of his hearing, Kerr had already caught the art bug.
He went on to study fine art and traditional art at Western Michigan University and the prestigious Kendall School of Design, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration. He was even chosen as a top illustrator to be shown in the Society of Illustrators Museum in New York. But after a move to Dallas, he noticed the field was changing.
“The only jobs you could really get were graphic design,” he recalled. “Computers were coming out, so they didn’t need illustrators as much, because they could get everything online. So, I became a graphic designer.”
Kerr’s ensuing career in design included his tenure as a senior graphic designer at the Dallas Morning News and seven years at Ebby Halliday Realtors, where he designed ad campaigns and luxury products. Kerr even dabbled in print modeling.
“For so many years, I was just creating art for other people,” Kerr said of his decision to return to fine art. “I’d always wanted to get into finding my own voice. Once I left corporate, I thought I really want to start getting back into the eye-hand coordination and creating things away from the computer.”
As we talked at the home he shares with his partner, Jim Judd, Kerr was preparing for a new group exhibition, BOTANICA, at DHV Artworks.
“I was paralyzed for a long time to move in that direction,” he said of his creative struggle. “Was I going to fail? How was my final piece going to turn out?”
But his vibrant colors and exacting organic forms reveal he has triumphed over his self-doubt. Lately, his subject matter has included the natural world and several striking portraits of American Indians.
“I want to create some type of a story,” he said of his work, “but I don’t want to completely tell the story. I want people to form their own opinions.”
As an artistic inspiration to those returning to their first love later in life, Kerr is philosophical.
“The creativity starts to show itself,” he said, “and it will take you to where you want it to be.”
Author
Josh Hickman
Josh Hickman is a national award-winning journalist, visual artist, sometime musician, and author of seven books. His writing For People Newspapers often focuses on arts & culture, local small businesses, local history & government, and interesting personal stories. His paintings include a commission for Dallas County and a donation to Parkland Memorial Hospital.
