About the Artist: Brian Kershisnik

Brian Kershisnik lives with his wife, Suzanne, and three children in Kanosh, Utah. The son of a petroleum geologist, he grew up in Angola, Thailand, Texas, and Pakistan. After serving a mission in Denmark, he took a bachelor’s degree in painting at BYU and a graduate degree in printmaking at the University of Texas in Austin. His paintings have been featured at numerous solo and group exhibitions, and images of them have been reproduced in numerous books and catalogs. Kershisnik has himself created a notable anthology of his own paintings, Painting from Life, published in 2002 by Guild Publishing of Madison, Wisconsin. 

Kershisnik’s paintings seem simple and whimsical—a few subjects in unadorned settings, sometimes caught in puzzling attitudes of dance or incongruous gesture. Their simplicity is deceiving. Their simple figures and sparse settings evoke a sense of the surreal and of wakeful dreams. They are replete with indeterminate suggestion, stirring deep emotion and taking on a mysterious and subliminal symbolism. 

Many of Kershisnik’s paintings address themselves to no particular culture or country. Yet Latter-day Saints often find a reflection of their faith in them. Of particular note is Nativity, a very large painting composed of life-size figures, which renders the birth of Christ in a pure LDS idiom. In it, an exhausted Mary holds the just-born Jesus to a breast. Two midwives kneel beside her, their hands still bloody from assisting at the birth. Behind Mary kneels a half-despairing Joseph, drained of energy by the cosmic responsibility suddenly thrust upon his shoulders. Crowding eagerly around is a multitude of supernatural persons clothed in radiant white—angelic, preexistent spirits of the sort in which Mormons believe. Kershisnik understands his faith and knows how to make it visible. To learn more about him and his remarkable art, visit his website at http:// www.kershisnik.com. 

Front cover: Woman with Infant Flying, oil on canvas, 138 x 108 inches, 2007. 

Back cover: Fall Coming like Three Sisters, oil on canvas, 76 x 48 inches, 2006. Courtesy Val and Alice Hemming.