Alan Bardin Bio

Upon finishing his education at the University of Wiconsin at Madison , Alan Harley Bardin returned to his home town Milwaukee.

Armed with a degree in Psychology and an aversion towards athority, Bardin's Uncle Harvey offered him a free apartment, paint brush and a 5 gallon bucket of paint. Thus started the somewhat successful Bardin Painting Shop where he learned to mix colors, hire some painting crews and continue to paint most of the big old Mansions on Milwaukee's lower east side. After 20 years of slapping a brush, most of his skilled trade painters were gone. Over the next 10 years Bardin "soon" tired of hiring fake painters.

At the edge of despair - Bardin concluded he was more of a baby sitter than a trade painter. In 2009 he sold his shop in RiverWest. However to his surprise he was left with 5,000 gallons of hazardous waste (paint) that nobody wanted.

Being stubborn, Bardin curb picked a bundle of art canvases and started painting his visions of some of his few remaining painters and other beings, determined to not let the paint go to waste. The few remaining employees could hear Bardin ranting or laughing histarically secluded in his parking lot.

The characters are at once both menacing and child-like. The settings are the fantastic invention of the artist - although Bardin insists he is a painter not an artist, who applies color to the canvas with a balanced degree of control and reckless abandon. The result is evocative paintings created to fulfill the imagination of the creator Bardin.

Using commercial house paints Bardin has devised a richly colorful and emotionally charged world of blunt expressions and interactions. The vehicles for this vision are a cross between aliens and fetal baby-monsters captured in the act of trying to be human.

Perpetuating a tradition of untrained and visionary art, Bardin, with a refreshing lack of self-absorption,explores his vision with humor and intensity, resulting in a visual experience at once both visceral and thought provoking.

As simple experiments in color alone, these canvasses scream for more room, more presence, bigger and dimensional. Coupled with the edgy point of view of the artist., on a grander scale, they would be seductive and perplexing. Not to mention an overpowering rich combination of simplicity and complexity.


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Upon finishing his education at the University of Wiconsin at Madison , Alan Harley Bardin returned to his home town Milwaukee. Armed with a degree in Psychology and an aversion towards athority, Bardin's Uncle Harvey offered him a free apartment, paint brush and a 5 gallon bucket of paint. Thus started the somewhat successful Bardin Painting Shop where he learned to mix colors, hire some painting crews and continue to paint most of the big old Mansions on Milwaukee's lower east side. After 20 years of slapping a brush, most of his skilled trade painters were gone. Over the next 10 years Bardin "soon" tired of hiring fake painters. At the edge of despair - Bardin concluded he was more of a baby sitter than a trade painter. In 2009 he sold his shop in RiverWest. However to his surprise he was left with 5,000 gallons of hazardous waste (paint) that nobody wanted. Being stubborn, Bardin curb picked a bundle of art canvases and started painting his visions of some of his few remaining painters and other beings, determined to not let the paint go to waste. The few remaining employees could hear Bardin ranting or laughing histarically secluded in his parking lot. The characters are at once both menacing and child-like. The settings are the fantastic invention of the artist - although Bardin insists he is a painter not an artist, who applies color to the canvas with a balanced degree of control and reckless abandon. The result is evocative paintings created to fulfill the imagination of the creator Bardin. Using commercial house paints Bardin has devised a richly colorful and emotionally charged world of blunt expressions and interactions. The vehicles for this vision are a cross between aliens and fetal baby-monsters captured in the act of trying to be human. Perpetuating a tradition of untrained and visionary art, Bardin, with a refreshing lack of self-absorption,explores his vision with humor and intensity, resulting in a visual experience at once both visceral and thought provoking. As simple experiments in color alone, these canvasses scream for more room, more presence, bigger and dimensional. Coupled with the edgy point of view of the artist., on a grander scale, they would be seductive and perplexing. Not to mention an overpowering rich combination of simplicity and complexity.