Brian Kalbfleisch

Brian Kalbfleisch is a visual artist and musician based in Nelson, BC.

Visually, Kalbfleisch’s primary medium is reclaimed lumber sourced from heritage buildings, old fences, decks, and sometimes random locations. He crafts wood tile mosaics, usually abstract images reflecting aspects of the natural world like celestial constellations, cell membranes, motion, and flower gardens.

For this project, Kalbfleisch will present time-lapse video of himself at work on two mosaics created in April 2021. A broken shoulder injury in February prevented Kalbfleisch from being able to fully engage with his work for several weeks, but fortunately he was able to participate in the Offsite project and present two new works along with a partial retrospective gallery of past works.

A piano player, ukulele-ist, and singer, he draws on influences such as Miles Davis, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Portishead and Neil Young. Kalbfleisch is also active as an independent events coordinator and curator of both the visual art and music. Among other things, he established the art gallery at the Kaslo Jazz Festival in 2017 and developed the Blue Night Arts and Culture Crawl in Nelson. In 2018 he was given the Sustainability Leadership Award by the City of Nelson for his contributions to the Arts sector.

I am grateful to live and prosper on unceded traditional territory of the Ktunaxa, the Syilx, and the Sinixt peoples.