Braxton Fuller, a visual artist from St. Joseph, used to work for Cerner. He “ran scans” and “searched for vulnerabilities” for hospitals. Not his thing.
“When I quit Cerner, I quit to pursue writing full time,” says Fuller. “I had no plan or anything. Just took a leap of faith.”
That was nearly six years ago, and in the time since, Fuller has taken up visual art and displayed his work in Chicago, New York, and Singapore. A lot of his art is text-based—phrases from his brain or pop culture painted on canvas, or turf, or a scale. Though he has dabbled in abstract art, he says text-based art is “home.”
Tonight, Fuller will open a ten-piece solo exhibition called Reflections. It will be on view until September 27 at Kansas City Artists Coalition’s Snap Space Gallery.
We caught up with Fuller on Wednesday to discuss his art and his upcoming exhibition.
Quotes were edited for length and clarity.
On transitioning from writing to visual art:
I worked at Cerner from, like, 2017 to 2018-and-a-half—I think I quit Cerner in November—and then I pursued writing poetry, which eventually led to me becoming an artist.
I was the furthest thing from artistic—at least I thought I was. It was just one of those life events that happens where you just have to find a way to work through it, and I used poetry to do that. But poetry wasn’t paying the bills, so I had to figure out a way to make money, and so I just started putting my words on canvas and just kept doing it and working on it, and it led me to where I am now.
I was not the best artist when I started, but I was a good writer, and I’ve just kind of implemented both abilities into one.
On what he can do with visual art that he can’t in poetry:
It just depends on the concept. I did a piece called The Grass is Greener Because It’s Fake, and I used AstroTurf and painted the turf to look dead, and the phrase was green. That’s just an example.
I just try to use different techniques that I’ve learned throughout the years, different conceptual ideas that I come up with. For instance, I’ve done a scale, but I busted it all up and put “The Things We Carry” on it and hung it on a wall. The things we carry weigh us down and break us and tear us down in ways we can’t imagine.
On what to expect at Reflections:
Expect to come and be open-minded. It’s an exhibition using all mirrors. My whole mission for this exhibition is to make people sit in front of a mirror and actually think about what they’re looking at and realize that it’s deeper than surface level. I really wanted to hone in on the fact that being a good person and making the world a better place starts with us. If you start with the man in the mirror, the person you’re talking to or influencing is going to be better off.
This show is more personal. The audience is a part of this show. When they look at the painting or the piece, they’re a part of it at that point because it’s reflecting them. It’s definitely a study or self. It’s something that you can come into and maybe leave better off than when you walked in. Every angle of every mirror is going to reflect them into a different space.
We all look in mirrors or we all look at our phones to see what’s wrong—make sure we don’t have anything in our teeth, or pop a pimple, fix our hair, whatever. Sometimes it’s okay to just not be perfect.
On his artistic future:
I’ve kind of been focused on the text-based stuff, and that’s kind of where I’m at now—it’s definitely my home. I would say more text-based stuff, more innovative ways to say things that people say every day.
I know I want to do a series of physical products, like an old TV or a scale or a baseball bat—I want to be able to use older technology or older things that we use everyday and use those things to connect with my audience.