Brenda Pinkston

Brenda Pinkston earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Fine Art from The College of New Jersey. Some of her studies included Fine Art, Advertising Design, Sculpture, Photography, Color Theory and Art History. She has won several art gallery awards and juried gallery awards, most recent she was first place winner of the 2015 Black Women in Jazz & Arts Award.

 

Pinkston considers her painting style a modern take on impressionism. During her studies in college she was immediately drawn toward the many works of Impressionist Artist like Pierre Auguste Renoir of the late 1800's. Impressionist Artist painted with bright colors, quick brush strokes, used up close and personal subjects, unusually angled portraits and landscapes. However, it was the colorful portraits that created movement with color and random brush strokes to tell its story that became her favorite.
Sadly, she felt missing in these works were people of color and she knew that’s where she would contribute her artistic abilities. Pinkston’s art reflects the sensitive side of life, seen, felt and imagined. Her images are people from her neighborhood, family and friends who represent the African-American experience. She believes every color has an emotion with unimaginable possibilities!

 

Because her work includes other influences, some would argue that Pinkston is not an Impressionist Artist. However, her paintings certainly display impressionist concepts. She is a master of color and delivers exceptional emotion in her works. Her paintings come alive with the use of bright colors and unintentional brush strokes to convey a range of emotions and her use of displaying subjects dramatically on the canvas to create an emotional closeness. Pinkston jokingly likes to call her painting style "Brendaism".

 

After college, she worked several years as Art Director for Don Vereen’s Applause, a women's specialty designer salon in Trenton, N.J. It was at Applause that she mastered her style by forcing pen & ink fashion illustrations designed for newspapers and magazines to display a sense of gradual shading using horizontal lines. These lines have become her signature!

Today you can find her in North Carolina painting in her private art studio/gallery along with her sister who is also an incredible artist.