Brenda Hurst

I’m a painter and a mixed media assemblage artist. Conceptually, the idea of inexhaustible life has emerged as a common thread in my work. Often consciously but other times not.

My pieces are inspired by a sense of reverence for the beauty of life, with its decay and erosion, and then the emergence of, or rebirth of what grows from that. They reflect my fascination with nature’s ever-changing pantheon of shapes, patterns, surface qualities and colors that go along with the cycles of life.

Being influenced by mixed media artists like Joseph Cornell, Louise Nevelson, and George Herms, I create hand-built assemblages to explore my interest in an ideology associated with the destiny of change and transformation. I keep in mind the concept of one’s renewed growth, after allowing the collapse of old structures and outgrown values. My work represents the ability to move forward without being trapped by any outmoded perceptions and belief systems of the past. Like the phoenix rising from the ashes myth, I use parts of the old to build something new. I’m fascinated by the imagery invoked by the vision of a life force that’s not in our control, which shakes us from our complacency, and pushes us to a renewed life... if we want it or not.

These ideas also lead me to create painted pieces where I cut up, break apart or paint over, one of my already existing art pieces. In this way a new piece emerges from the old.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Brenda Hurst received a BA degree in

Art, with an emphasis in photography, from California State University, Northridge. She has always worked in creative fields, whether it was as a scenic artist for the television & film business, as the Assistant to the Director of the Craft & Folk Art Museum, or later as a Director of Still Photography and Photo Producer at NBC Universal.

Brenda continued her exploration of various materials and methods at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, and now works as a full time artist at her studio located in northeast Los Angeles.

The focus of Brenda’s work is not only on painting, but also on mixed media assemblage, encaustic & photography. While incorporating a wide variety of materials and found objects, she’s interested in the process of discovering ways to bring them together in intriguing textural relationships, patterns, thoughts and inspirations.