Get to Know Kurtis Brand

Thanks to our partner ExhibitIQ, I sat down with co-founder Lily Primamore for an in-person talk in NYC. My full body of work lives there, with inventory and provenance.

Why does that matter? Every piece carries a documented history. Each painting is registered with a Certificate of Authenticity, so its story travels with it from my studio to your wall and beyond.

Like fine jewelry, original work holds its value and gains meaning with time and scarcity. I'm a living artist, working to express the culture we share. As we evolve, the work evolves, and each piece becomes part of a growing record.

Provenance is what makes that record real. It turns a painting you love into an inheritance.

INTRO / YOUR JOURNEY

Q: How did you get here, and how did your process develop?
I've made art professionally since I left art school. I chose to start working right away over going back for an MFA. I come from the old school: you do whatever it takes to keep the work going. So I've held many jobs alongside the studio, and every one of them fed the practice in some way.

From the start I experimented constantly with different mediums and styles. The first body of work that really sold was my jazz pieces. They were narratives pulled together from chiaroscuro images of jazz musicians. I'd photograph the TV screen during performances, photocopy images, and build compositions from that raw material.

Over time that style felt too defined. The image told the viewer what to see. I moved into abstraction to open the work up, so people could walk into it and find their own meaning. That opening became the whole direction of the practice.

PROCESS

Q: Which work are we using, and why?
Psychophant It's on ExhibitIQ. I chose it because it came together the way a great painting comes together. You grind away on painting after painting, layer after layer, and then one day it simply arrives. It feels less like something I made and more like something that finished itself while I stayed present.

Q: Where does meditation enter the practice?
Meditation became central because I saw that it shares the same nature as painting. Both are about getting out of your own way. In meditation, thoughts arise and you let them pass without grabbing hold. In abstract painting, you let each mark respond to the last one instead of to a plan in your head.

I sensed this from the very beginning, before I had language for it. What I wanted was a painting that creates itself. The practice of meditation gave me the discipline to allow that.

WHAT WE DON'T SEE

Q: What lives in the work that the finished piece conceals?
Years of practice, for one. Every painting carries the ones that came before it. And there's the writing. Many of my paintings hold words, and people always lean in to read them, the way they'd study a song lyric.

Think of John Lennon. Much of his writing was avant-garde, chosen for how the words sounded and the images they called up. The meaning stayed open, so each listener brought their own. The writing in my work functions the same way. It invites you closer and then hands the reading back to you.

GUIDED MEDITATION

Kurt to lead. Minimal explanation beforehand.

WHAT CHANGED?

Open discussion with the room.

THE SHIFT

Q: Seeing, curiosity, learning, experiencing, participating, connecting, desire. Where does the shift happen, and why?
For me the biggest shift came through meditation. It took me a long time to truly hold this: step aside and let the painting finish itself. One thing builds on another. I listen to the painting instead of my mind.

When that happens, a rapport forms between me and the canvas. It becomes a spiritual connection rather than a project I'm steering. Whenever we force something into what we think we want, we get into trouble. That's true in painting, and it's true in everything else.

Q: How does that show up when you work with patrons on commissions?
Twenty-five years of Zen practice is essentially the practice of dissolving the ego. That's what makes commission work possible for me. It lets me put the client's vision first.

What fascinates me is that people often hold very strong ideas about what they want and lack the words to voice them. My role is to receive those ideas openly, find what's alive in them, and carry them somewhere good. Along the way I learn how people think about art, how they see, how they communicate. All of that goes into the painting they receive. It becomes a true collaboration, and that's a rare thing for an artist to welcome.

PROCESS + VALUE

Q: Does knowing the process change our relationship to the work? Can revealing too much take something away?
Absolutely. Knowing some of the story draws people closer. It gives them a way in. Past a certain point, though, explanation starts closing doors the painting left open. The work gives the most when the viewer completes it. My job is to offer enough to invite someone in and then trust them with the rest.

SPIRITUALITY + CONNECTION

Q: Does someone need to understand the spiritual framework to fully experience the work?
They experience it either way. I believe the work carries an energetic connection that lives beyond definition. Whether someone makes that connection intellectually is secondary.

When people reach out and tell me they love a piece, that tells me the connection has already happened. They've received something spiritual through the work, whether or not they'd call it that. And I think that's what sets my work apart in a very crowded field of abstract painters. I let the work manifest itself, and people feel that.

CREATION + TRANSFERENCE

Q: What do you want someone to take home?
A work that keeps revealing itself. That's one of the most important things to me, and one people often miss at first. What you see today will shift in a month. It will shift again in a year.

You live with a painting the way you live with a person. The right person becomes part of your life and keeps growing there, showing you new sides of themselves over time. I want art to live with people the same way.

Q: Why are you an artist?
Because it's what I have to do. I've tried to step away from it several times and do other things. It has always stayed with me, whatever else I was doing. At a certain point you follow what you're most aligned with.

If money were no concern at all, I'd do exactly what I'm doing now.