about

Brenda Kilgore has studied extensively and worked in many different venues in her art career.


Brenda worked as an art director for Pyramid Handbags and designed children's accessories for such companies as Walt Disney, Mattel, and Warner Brothers as well as freelance designs for Regina Porter Women’s Wear.  Brenda's designs were featured in "W" magazine as notable. Brenda left designing to follow her desire for fine art and portraiture and studied for several years with Burton Silverman. Brenda also received her Masters of Fine Arts from the New York Academy of Art, Graduate School of Figurative Art in New York City. She studied there with such notable teachers as Vincent Desiderio, Patrick Connors, and Ted Schmidt among others. 

Brenda moved to Florida in 2002 to become partners with Lisa Hyde in a mural painting/decorative painting business. They worked all over the country for such notable clients as Sylvester Stallone and Reggie Jackson. Brenda and Lisa’s work was featured in “World’s Leading Estates” magazine and on a two-hour ABC television episode of “Extreme Makeover, Home Edition”. They have done work in high end homes, restaurants, and public spaces.  Brenda’s love of fine art also led her to teach portraiture and anatomy at The Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach during that time. 


Brenda and Lisa became interested in being more environmentally friendly in their decorative work and they were offered the opportunity to represent a new exciting product line from Modern Masters. They put their collective experience and knowledge to use and opened Palm Beach Academy of the Decorative Arts located in Lake Park, FL in 2008 to teach professionals how to use the product line and as a resource for professional artists, contractors, and designers alike.


In June 2009, Brenda was offered an exciting opportunity to do a mural with the children from Drug Fighters School in the Kibera Slums in Nairobi, Kenya. She worked with the children’s help and had a profoundly moving experience that inspired a portrait of the school’s director. The painting was purchased and donated to the school. Brenda went back to do a second mural at the school in February 2010 as a thank you to Barilla Pasta for donating money to the school’s food program. Both of these trips  inspired Brenda to paint some poignant portraits of the children. In January of  2014, she returned yet again to Kibera, Kenya to the Facing The Future School to paint a mural with the students for the school’s library, continuing her work with Cross Cultural Thresholds.


 Brenda is currently residing in Nyack, NY where she works in her private studio. She does portraits on commission working mostly from life. Brenda finds her inspiration for her figurative work in her extensive travels, the beauty of the human form and continues her classic academic studies with frequent visits to Studio Escalier, France. She also continues her mural and decorative painting work, including most recently a war veteran memorial mural for the American Legion Post 1600 of Pomona, NY.