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Bio |
| Outsider Wildlife Artist |
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Bio |
| Outsider Wildlife Artist |
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Carel Pieter Brest van Kempen has spent brief periods living in many places, but his stereo has always remained in Salt Lake County, Utah, where he was born and raised. He grew up in Emigration Canyon, a low pass across the Wasatch Mountains and a major 19th Century pioneer route followed by the Donner party, the Brigham Young party and other celebrated parties. It was an ideal place for a kid like him to grow up, and was elemental in forging his artistic sensibilities. The access it gave him to vast areas of wild country allowed for obsessive exploration of nature, igniting a fierce curiosity about ecology. Watching the transformation of his small, working-class hamlet into a wealthy bedroom community for nearby Salt Lake City, with a doubling of the population and wilderness hotspots falling left and right to the bulldozers, instilled in him the heart of an ardent conservationist. |
| It wasn’t until his late 20s that Carel’s artistic skills approached a level that a future career as a painter seemed plausible. He leapt into the deep end and spent the next decade devoting his energy and finances to honing his skills and building a body of work, often putting in over 100 hours per week. He lived in various states of houselessness for five years before saving up enough for a down payment on a modest bungalow in Salt Lake City. During this period, he dodged several winters by backpacking around Latin America, Central Africa or Southeast Asia. |
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But Brest van Kempen had a hard time finding his place within the wildlife art world. He felt that few of the artists he saw were mining the true potential of the genre, which seemed dominated by pin-up type art: romanticized portraits that said little about their actual subjects. He found that the hallmark of wildlife, its staggering diversity, was poorly reflected in the canon as a whole. “I’m trying to do my little part to fix that,” he laughs. |
| Brest van Kempen is highly regarded by his peers. Among them is Carl Brenders, who owns a Brest van Kempen original and who remarked, "Carel Pieter Brest van Kempen will make history in wildlife art. He is pure, and all of his heart and sole are in his work." |
 Carl Brenders |
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Brest van Kempen’s work has been exhibited on six continents, in venues including the Smithsonian, the British Museum and the National Museum of Taiwan. He has had solo exhibitions in twelve states, in venues including the Houston Museum of Natural History and the Chicago Academy of Science. He has been awarded the top honor given specifically for animal art, the Society of Animal Artists Award of Excellence, a record nine times, a record shared only with British Columbia’s Robert Bateman and Washington state’s Leo Osborne. Among his many honors are the Artists For Conservation Medal of Excellence, the Arts For The Parks Wildlife Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Animal Artists. Brest van Kempen also does freelance natural science illustration and writes and blogs about natural history topics. He authored the book Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding and is currently working on a comprehensive field guide to the birds of Utah. Carel lives with his conscience in Salt Lake City, Utah. |
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