Ziggy Sawdust

Visual Art – Pittsburgh

Layer by layer, artist Brady Kellner (Ziggy Sawdust) painstakingly sculpts three-dimensional paintings from formerly flat slabs of oak and mahogany, using a dremel instead of a brush and a blowtorch to coax out his palette. Each portrait and still-life that emerges from his Pittsburgh workshop is a careful marriage of inspiration, practiced skill and meticulous planning. Kellner started as an artist selling pen-and-ink sketches outside the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and quickly collected a string of galleries from the Napa Valley to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, exhibiting his work. At a campsite in the foothills of Oregon’s Mount Tabor, however, Kellner found his artistic focus. Inspired by the grandeur of the Pacific Northwest, he bought a basic whittling kit in town and made his first carving: a face in the knot of a fallen tree. That was 2008. Kellner had moved to California to pursue painting, but began devoting himself to developing his signature “woodography” technique on a private art preserve in the Oregon mountains in 2012. Kellner returned to Pittsburgh in 2013 equipped with the style and technique which he\'d cultivated and has enjoyed a modest amount of success with featured works in several exhibitions and publications. In his next body of work he will exploring the relationship between beauty and psyche; incorporating vibrant color into his artwork to contrast the dark, subtle tones of his current palette. This work will be ready for display in 2015.