Meet Brittney S. Price
Associate Artist Fremont Healthy Kid Zone Fence Art Medallion Project
Brittney Price Los Angeles based artist specializing in bright and colorful imaginative character work incorporating floral design. Brittney inspires to bring a little joy and wonder to the world around her and turn ordinary locations into a catalyst for people’s imagination to flourish. She has recently done work with ComfortLA, Soulful Noise, ComeUpLA, Juicebot and Painting With a Twist.
What about your neighborhood do you live in and what’s special about it?
I live in Mid CIty. It's pre gentrification, but it’s starting to get hit. There is a lot of culture, a lot of pain, and lots of litter, but then there’s also beautiful art everywhere. There’s a beautiful piece of Kobe and his daughter Gianna at the local grocery store. There’s another mural of Nipsey by the Mid City Art Gallery. It’s a really interesting mix because they’re a Wiltern Square, a prominent neighborhood with million dollar homes and right next to it there’s a community of houseless people. It’s a really interesting mix. It’s an interesting jumble and there is lots to draw from in that. It’s an eclectic neighborhood. It’s a special mix of people.
What’s your background as an artist?
I started painting professionally three years ago, so I’m a baby when it comes to creating. Art has always been there for me. I’ve always been creative. I always had the craziest science fair boards. I didn’t even care what the science fair was supposed to be about, but I was always excited to decorate. I always loved going to Michaels, but I never thought art could be a career for me or that expressing myself was valid. Because growing up the importance of math and science was reinforced as subjects that would get me somewhere. Even going into college I wanted to be a doctor because that was put on to me and that became too much, so I ended up majoring in Communications.
Three years ago I had a job where I was making really good money and I was on the go all the time. I decided that if I wanted to be an artist I had to do it. I started taking classes at LAVC and then I started selling my pieces and transitioned to full time. It’s weird because I didn’t think that my art was good enough or that people would pay me for my stuff. I’m sure some of my friends thought I was having a mid life crisis because she’s about to quit her job and become an artist but it’s been working for 3 years.
What prompted you to shift and focus on art full time? (12:00)
It had always been in the back of my mind. I had other friends who were creating and creating openly. For me, I would also say, “oh I did this.” Then thought, what’s the power in it if you don’t share it? I had that voice constantly in the back of my head getting louder and louder. I started sharing some of my artwork on IG and everyone was pretty receptive to it. So I took the leap of faith and I haven’t looked back.
Who are some of your artistic influences?
I love Black Artists. Bisa Butler is my jam. It looks painted, but it's tapestry. There are patterns galore. It’s so good! I like Charlie Palmer. I love Kerry James Marshall because he’s telling stories. I remember seeing an interview of his where he said, “I just want to tell stories about Black Love because I didn’t see it anywhere else.”
Kehinde Wiley, because he does beautiful work and that can not be contested. He’s technically so good and then he has soul behind his pieces on top of them being so technically magnificent. No one else feels me on this, but I really like Salvador Dali. I’m like, “Do you not know how absurd this guy is?” Also knowing about his affair with Frida Kahlo, knowing that they were a thing is so intriguing to me.
How would you describe your work?
Well, I like to think that my work is vibrant. I love using a lot of colors to my detriment. I want to be simplistic in everything, but it never happens. So, I’m working on it. Believe me there is so much restraint in my pieces, but you would never know. My work is vibrant and I try to capture some type of emotion in whatever I’m painting.
Recently, I’ve gotten into portraiture. I was really scared to get into it because people can tell that it’s either right or it’s wrong or they’ll go, “who’s that?” I’m getting better at it. I’ve been doing a lot of portraits and it’s teaching me a lot of discipline.
I work with acrylic and some oils. I just got into epoxy resin and I’ve been working with spray paint. Two months ago I did a commercial for the Olympics where I had to do a Bob Marley mural portrait.
What’s your artistic process?
I pick out what I want to do and then I have to meditate on it for about a week. I have it in the back of my head and I think about it. After that I lay the sketch. Then I go ahead and put the first layer on it and then I come back to it in about 2 days. I don’t know why I’m like that. Then I come back to it and work on it throughout the entire night. I might even work on it for 2 days straight with no breaks. Even while I’m in bed. Once I had a setup that was ridiculous and I don’t know how my boyfriend puts up with me but he does. I covered half the bed in a tarp so I didn’t get paint on the bed while I worked. I like to film the time lapse of my process ,so I had a light and table with all my paints on it next to the bed while I worked. My boyfriend had to sleep on a sliver of the bed while I painted in bed throughout the night with a bright light on. He’s also an artist, so he gets it, but I try not to do that often.
What subjects, issues and themes do you explore in your work?
My work has been really introverted and about what I’m dealing with at that moment. I have a piece called Tis’ Better and it basically goes with the quote, “Tis better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” The piece chronicles the relationship between two lovers. I have male and female and you see them start off where it’s almost an evolution where they’re together and loving each other, but towards the end they’re both sad and apart.That was about me going through a break up, well, processing a break up because it happened two years prior. I was realizing the beauty of having love and having lost it. After that, I said, “screw all of this heavy stuff. I’m going to do a bunch of crazy faces.” After that I painted a series of kids making crazy faces, so it might not seem linked ,but it’s like whatever I’m feeling at that moment. As an artist I want to take what’s going on inside of me and put it on paper, but I also want to look further outside of myself and that takes some training to do.