My Obituary

I am taking a professional development class for artists here in Los Angeles, and our assignment for this week was to write our own obituary.  The goal of this exercise was to think about what we want to accomplish in our lives – what are our goals, and what do we want to be remembered for.  This was more difficult that I had anticipated – it wasn’t easy to think about what I want to accomplish, but ultimately, the exercise was rewarding.  It was effective in helping me flesh out what I really want to do with my art career, something artists often don’t think about.  If you had to write your own obituary, what would it say?  The text of my obituary is below:

BRADLEY HANKEY 1979 – 2067

Visual artist Bradley Hankey died in his Los Angeles home on April 21 at age 88. Hankey was born in Oregon, and moved to Boston to attend Massachusetts College of Art, where he graduated with a BFA in 2007. Hankey moved to Los Angeles in 2009, and graduated from UCLA with a MFA in 2013.

Hankey’s early work was influenced by Surrealism and artists such as Hopper, Hockney, Itten, and De Chirico. Places were also critical to his work, and his paintings were often inspired by his surroundings and travels. The “Natural Beauty” series of paintings, begun shortly after moving to Los Angeles, comments on the natural and the artificial environments of the area. These are among his best known works.

After graduate school, Hankey briefly taught at several area schools in Los Angeles, and was a frequent guest speaker at art schools around the country. His lectures often revolved around the importance of color theory and critical thinking in painting, as well as keeping traditional painting techniques alive. Hankey’s books are widely read. While his works often bordered on the abstract, he considered himself an observational painter, and championed this style of painting throughout his career.

Hankey’s works are shown in galleries in Los Angeles, New York, and Hanoi. His paintings have been collected globally, and he has shown in Museums in the United States, Vietnam, Costa Rica, and Tanzania. A retrospective of more than 100 paintings was mounted in 2035 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and traveled to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., as well as the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.