Bree Gilliam

Bree Gilliam is a Buffalo-based artist whose work primarily focuses on social issues and daily experiences. Her work incorporates bold color and expressive brushwork to provoke emotion from her audience. Working predominantly in oils, Gilliam primarily paints portraits of celebrities, friends, and family. Her goal is to always relate, inform, and spark conversation. She believes that conversations are the first step to making solutions to the problems in this world.

When discussing her artistic inspiration for her portrait work, Gilliam stated: "there’s so much emotion in people’s faces – people typically see faces, and just walk by. I enjoy looking and studying the faces – they tell so much about the person. The humanity. Especially their eyes."[1]

Gilliam is a native of Williamsville, NY. She is the owner and founder of Paintphoria, Buffalo’s first open studio splatter room. She graduated from SUNY Buffalo State in 2022 with a BFA degree in painting and a minor in art therapy. She is a member of the Dean’s Honors Program. During her time at Buffalo State, Gilliam was also selected to be a Dean’s Student Council Representative during the COVID-19 pandemic where she expressed the concerns of students in the Art and Design Department at Buffalo State. In 2021, she received an Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship where she painted eight portrait paintings of influential individuals in the African American Community. She presented her project at the SUNY Undergraduate Research Conference in 2022. During her first year, she was selected to do an interactive mural in Upton Hall, titled Seeds of Creativity.

Gilliam has received over ten awards and scholarships during her time at Buffalo State. Some of these include Dean’s Award for Excellence; Dean’s Creative Associates Award; Robert C. and Marilyn Wilson Painting Scholarship; Barbara L. Czurles-Nelson and Donald J. Nelson Scholarship in Fine Arts; James and Doris Aikman Fine Arts Scholarship; Dr. Harry and Lorraine Ausprich Endowed Scholarship; and Hyatt’s Award for Excellence. Her work has been featured in Buffalo State’s annual “Art and Design Department Student Exhibition” (2018, 2020, 2021, 2022), WNY Urban Arts Collective, Paint the Town, and Los Artistas del Barrio collaborative show, “Bridging the Gap.” (2018), Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. Show: “A Salute to the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Art Movement” (2019), “Artist Galleria” presented by Buffalo State’s chapter of NAACP and Black Active Minds (2020), and Anne Frank Project’s, “Black Stories Matter” (2022).

To learn more about the artist, visit: https://www.breegilliam.com/.

 
[1] “Art Talk: Bree Gilliam,” Buffalo Rising, December 8, 2022, https://www.buffalorising.com/2022/12/art-talk-bree-gilliam/.