Joseph F. Brickey (1973- ), Provo

This painting smacks you right in the face. It will bring tears to your eyes in a milisecond. That's how I first encountered Joseph Brickey's oil painting The Living Christ (2009), winner of the Springville Museum of Art's Associate Director's Award in the Exhibition of Spiritual and Religious Art in Utah, 2009.

Joseph Brickey

The Living Christ, 2009

oil
Associate Director's Award
$23,000



No matter how you look at it, this painting is a tour-de-force. The colors are wonderful, the depiction of Christ is sensitive yet powerful, the composition envelops you. Wow. This painting pops. I can't resist showing you how well this painting shows on the wall, even though in my opinion, it is a tad low, and lit all wrong. Look how your eyes snap to this painting:

Born the fourth of twelve children, Joseph Brickey was always proficient at art and drawing, but enrolled at BYU as a chemical engineering major. Upon his return home to Utah after serving a mission to Brazil, he decided to devote his life to art. All of his paintings have as their subject biblical and LDS themes.

Some of the features I like about Brickey's paintings: They are quite sophisticated and mature for LDS genre paintings. How mature? Think of Walter C. Rane in his 40s and 50s: that's what Brickey is like in his 30s. (Don't worry, Rane has not stopped evolving; see my blog post on Rane). Even when Brickey paints ubiquitous subjects, such as the birth of Christ, the Journey into Bethlehem, and the Annunciation, he always depicts his subjects in a fresh and unusual way. Here is his painting of the Christ Child:



Joseph Brickey
Dear To the Heart of the Shepherd

The swaddled baby Jesus is contrasted with a young shepherd boy who gazes at the infant with a face filled with adoration and yet, also filled with a mischievous smile common to all young boys.

I also like Brickey's sensitive treatment of women and children that comes very close to depictions in the portraits of Liz Lemon Swindle. Compare his Hope to Liz Swindle's Swaddling and his treatment of the mother and child bond approaches the warmth of Swindle's work.

Joseph Brickey
Hope
















Liz Lemon Swindle
Swaddling













Notes for Collectors:
Brickey is almost harmed by his immense talent: his large works are so overpowering they would be hard to place in a normal home, unless home is a grandiose mansion in Park City. They would be great in a commercial business or mall, but alas religious themes are not politically correct in a public setting. I cannot figure out why the Church has not purchased The Living Christ yet; they've purchased lots of other Brickey works, and this one is triumphal. That leaves an individual ward raising the money, and that creates a can of worms with worries about theft or deacons bouncing a basketball down the hall and into the painting. Oddly enough, I'd recommend that another denomination purchase the painting for their cathedral or church. It is a bargain at $23K. Also, Brickey has other original paintings just as amazing for as little as $3000.

If you want an art investment, I'd recommend any Brickey original painting at any price you can afford. Note too that he offers replication prints of his work for less than $10. I think his philosophy is to make his art available to the masses in order to further his missionary work.



Joseph Brickey's website is http://www.josephbrickey.com/