Born in Boston, Massachusetts to a family with an open mind and a propensity to do things differently, Brian Papa spend most of his early years riding big wheels, throwing rocks, and exploring the different neighborhoods his family lived in.

Heavily influenced by his upbringing and a rich diet of Saturday morning cartoons, skateboarding, and music, all these things lead him to explore influential artists such as Jim Phillips, Roy Lichtenstein, and Tex Avery to name a few. Their full color, eye popping images landed him in school with a creative mind that at times was hard to channel.

High school was spent drawing show posters, skateboarding, and dreaming of creating art for a living. Papa was overtaken by the idea of following a different path and doing his own thing. This all started to fall into place after a chance run-in with a local artist/sign painter named Ronnie Dion. Ronnie was able to give some direction to Papa’s wandering artistic mind, giving Brian the opportunity to develop his skills and showing him how to begin work as a freelance commercial artist.

Working as a commercial artist gave Papa the chance to work on thousands of projects and help many client’s visions come to life. However creating commercial work for many years began to feel creatively limiting with a growing client list pulling him along for the ride. Papa felt as if a shift was necessary. Commercial work is still a big part of Brian’s portfolio, though for the last few years movement towards creating art in his vision in the form of paintings and design work has been his primary focus.

Brian has had studios based in many major cities during his career. Although frequently traveling to display his art and meet the needs of his growing client list, he currently spends most of his time working out of his studio in the Pioneer Square arts district of Seattle where he is producing art and developing new ideas on a daily basis.