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. In her work, she addresses the social issues that plague society. As a young black woman, she believes that her responsibility is to depict the perspective of marginalized people, give a voice to the voiceless, and empower her community.

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 paint-throwing studio. She graduated from SUNY Buffalo State in 2022 with a BFA degree in painting and a minor in art therapy. 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.

In 2023, Gilliam was selected as an artist-in-residence at Hunt Art Gallery. Her work has been featured in several exhibitions around Western NY. Some of these include a solo exhibition, “INSPIRED,” at BOX Gallery and Buffalo Arts Studio, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center’s “Amid/In WNY 2024”, and Burchfield Penney Art Center’s “Sharing Our View: 25th Anniversary”. She has been commissioned to paint several murals in the Western New York area. Recently, Gilliam assisted on the the creation of a mural with Buffalo AKG Art Museum and Eat Off Art on the Jesse E. Nash Medical Center in Buffalo. In 2023, Niagara Falls National Heritage Area chose Gilliam to paint her mural entitled Free Your Mind. Gilliam has received over ten academic awards and scholarships during her time at Buffalo State. These include the Dean's Award for Excellence in the School of the Arts and Sciences, Robert C. and Marilyn Wilson Painting Scholarship, and the SUNY Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship.

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/.