Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronbrianartist/
Biography
Cameron Brian grew up in Denver, Colorado, the youngest of four children. His mother was a geologist who worked for several oil companies, and his father was a control systems engineer. Both parents shared a strong interest in art and design and encouraged creativity—especially in fine art and music.
Cameron earned his BFA from the College of Santa Fe (formerly St. Michael’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico) and went on to receive his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1993. He is the gallerist and co-owner of Transmission Gallery in Oakland, California, and has spent his life making, collecting, and exhibiting art.
Artist Statement
A little more than a decade ago in West Oakland, billboard companies were transitioning from layered paper panels to single-sheet vinyl wraps. The new material promised faster installation and a smoother, more seamless surface. As the old paper billboards were being dismantled, I started collecting the discarded layers. I was drawn to their texture and history—the way weather, paste, and time had fused color and image.
I began experimenting, gluing these salvaged sheets onto quarter-inch plywood panels, treating them like collage. The paper itself was surprisingly strong and colorfast, even after weeks of exposure to sun, rain, and grime. To work with it, I often had to soak the layers apart with warm water, sometimes revealing only fragments a few inches wide, sometimes entire sections of an image.
The halftone printing—tiny dots combining optically into color—creates subtle visual mixtures that shift when viewed up close. Presenting this material on the scale of a painting feels right to me; it honors its commercial origins while asking for a slower kind of attention. I’m still curious about its longevity indoors, but I love how it holds memory, process, and the city’s own surface all at once.
Pismo Beach and all the Clams we can Eat
Billboard Paper on wood
58.25” x 63.5” x 3”depth frame
Creeping up on me as plain as he could be
Billboard Paper on wood
27”x 51.75” x 3”depth frame