Brian Driscoll grew up in an extremely conservative family on a small sheep farm outside Castalia, Ohio. One of his first jobs was drawing pastel portraits on the midway of a local amusement park. While attending a community college in Cleveland, he was recruited by Columbia University to finish his degree. There, he received his BA in Visual Art in 2013. He was one of two students to be presented the Alumni Key Award upon graduation. He received his MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2018. He had his first solo show at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery in Chicago in 2019. He has also done residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Oxbow, and the School of Visual Arts. Currently, he teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

Because my work is so labor intensive, I am always planning and working out the details of my next piece while going through the steps to complete the work prior. Even with everything planned, I still leave some leeway to explore and improvise while I draw. My work is very much time-based, starting and ending every piece on specific dates or for a specific duration, so much of the process prioritizes what information is most important to include for the viewer before I reach my deadline.

I have a dedicated studio in my home, but the lines between the studio and living space become more blurred as time progresses. At some point, the art-making process took over every room of my house. This leads me to contend with the world’s worst studio assistant, my cat Chamberlain.