Brandon Bjorn Liesen
Conceptual Frame of Reference: A Self Portrait is a direct expression of who I was when I created it in August of 2022. I had recently retired from a successful 20-year active-duty career with the U.S. Coast Guard and was transitioning out of military service into the civilian world for the first time in my adult life. I had decided to pursue my life-long dream of becoming an artist. As exciting as that was, leaving a highly structured organization to pursue success in art untrained and with little direction was uncomfortable. Having joined the service at 18 years old, it was only after I retired from it that I realized how much it had come to define me. While the Coast Guard had not been my life’s passion, it had become the anchor of my identity in so many ways.
Conceptual Frame of Reference: A Self Portrait is an exploration of individuality, vulnerability, abstraction, amalgamation, and personal evolution. In the drawing, I am depicted wearing my formal Coast Guard dress jacket, unbuttoned, over a tie-dye T-shirt. Long hair being worn offers further juxtaposition to the service uniform which I was not comfortable taking off yet. Sunglasses obscure my eyes …I didn’t want the world to see this amorphous me. Around this time, I had taken a job as a custom picture framer to help supplement my art income. Making and framing art had become my new profession. In the drawing, I am framing myself. The frame is crooked as I make adjustments to the final composition (note: the drawing is framed using the actual one I’m holding here). Lastly, the expression on my face communicates the seriousness with which I was taking myself at that time.
Subject: Self
Conceptual Frame of Reference: A Self Portrait, 2022, charcoal and graphite on paper, 18” x 24”
Having had a life-long interest in art, Brandon Bjorn Liesen began pursuing it seriously in 2019 after retirement from 20 years of service as a Senior Chief in the U.S. Coast Guard. Brandon works in a variety of mediums including charcoal, pencil, oil, and photography. He is a husband, father, guitar player, sailor, and art instructor. Brandon shares his artistic vision and technical skills as a teaching artist at Kingston School of Art. He is self-taught.