Brad Anthony Bernard: A Visual Griot Provoking Humanity Through Art

Meet Brad. Brad Anthony Bernard is an artist, muralist, painter, and associate professor at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, his alma mater in 1993. Brad co-led a (virtual) community walk in the Franklin Heights neighborhood between Ben Franklin School and Melvina Park in summer 2021 along with Wilniesha Smith and Will Plautz.

Brad describes the responsibility of a public artist as a visual griot who documents the times and preserves the legacies of the people.

“Like I often tell my students, as an artist, you’re an educator, an advocate, an activist, and entrepreneur all at the same time. Because either you’re going to be teaching somebody how to do the particular skill that you do, or you’re going to be informing and teaching them about the concepts that you’re picking. Because all imagery brings about question, depending on who’s interpreting it. The days of you want to be an artist because you can be in your studio and not engage with the public around you—those days are gone.”

In addition to copious studio work, Brad has painted many public-facing murals with vibrant color palettes featuring Black leaders and themes of liberation.

“Right now, mission-wise, my art needs to at least express some sort of reflection of history or culture, purpose, or some sort of insight or reflection. It's fun to paint things that are entertaining to look at, but once you pull people in, what do you send them away with. I think that’s important.”

In considering ways that art can serve the Franklin Heights neighborhood to improve pedestrian safety, calm motor vehicle traffic, and call attention to native plantings and pollinators as well as remind residents of the area’s industrial past, Brad observes the power of popular culture icons to communicate across generations. Instantly recognizable symbols or characters from Disney or Sesame Street, for example, can communicate an ethos understood from great-grandparents to grandparents, parents, and children—all without words or context. Building on the power of the most accessible visual art to cue us in to a common experience, Brad and Will Plautz, an artist with ArtWorks for Milwaukee, conceived of a temporary public art intervention of “breadcrumbs.” The “breadcrumbs” could take the form of yard signs or pavement markings to help connect and annotate the way between Ben Franklin School and Melvina Park located just off 27th and Hopkins.

“The breadcrumbs serve as a gateway educator for the youth in the community and also to be a creative informer to the adults in a community,” Brad says. “When an adult can inform a child of something—children remember that.”