Introducing Landscape Painter Brad Teare August 01 2026, 0 Comments

By Kimberly Nicoletti

A few weeks ago, Raitman Art Galleries introduced Brad Teare’s oil paintings, and art collectors immediately responded to his vibrant, textural mountainscapes — one sold the first day, two more sold later that week and one sold last week, all to different clients. He just created six more for the gallery, and co-owner Brian Raitman says they are just as stunning as the first collection — and that’s saying a lot, given Brad Teare’s initial radiant landscapes the Raitman’s showcased. One of the brand new paintings is already sold too. 

Alpine  Pond by landscape artist Brad Teare

Academically trained as an illustrator, Brad Teare built a career primarily in woodcut, a classic relief printmaking technique where artists carve an image into a block of wood, roll ink onto the raised surface and press it onto paper. He designed book covers for such authors as James Michener, Anne Tyler and Alice Walker, working for publishers like The New York Times and Random House. He worked his way through college illustrating, and after graduating, he continued in the industry for 11 years.

But the urge to paint kept creeping in.

It all began in 1976, on the Pacific Crest Trail. While working in the Alpine Lakes wilderness area, he’d sketch on his days off.

“Looking at one of the beautiful valleys up there, filled with these lakes — and the lakes would be cascading down to a lower lake with these waterfalls going over these beautiful granite boulders — it was just gorgeous. And I just knew then that I was going to be a landscape painter. I didn’t know how I would get there, but that was very formative for me,” Teare said. 

He began following his desire to paint landscapes in 1998, spending time at night after he finished assignments. By 2000, he made it into his first gallery. 

Seven years later, the gallery director asked him to produce an abstract show based on his textural studies. 

“She was enthused by how visually exciting they were, so I shifted gears for six months and did large, 4 x 4 and 3 x 3-foot acrylic paintings,” Teare said.

Mountain Light by landscape artist Brad Teare

He employed thickening agents, such as marble dust and fumed silica, and began working with palette knives and cement trowels to move the paint around more efficiently.

“I shifted over to palette knives and cement trowels, and I never looked back. I just really loved the palette knife,” he said. “Within probably six months of switching over, I was connecting with major galleries, so it was an excellent career move for me.”

Autumn Road by landscape artist Brad Teare

Though art school taught Teare fundamentals, he struggled to learn how to paint texturally. He developed a passion for thick paint in 1989 when he saw 120 Vincent Van Gogh paintings in New York City. He was blown away by the texture and mark-making of the originals, and he always wanted to, at the very least, approximate that feeling.

“Being a woodcut artist came quite easily to me. I just had a natural gift for that art form, which was good because I came out of the starting gate really fast in the illustration business. But in painting, it took me quite a while. I had to really put in the hours,” Teare said.

The self-taught painter searched for instruction books on palette knife work and using what he calls marble color, but he came up short. So Teare invented his own techniques, which allowed his individual style to emerge.

During his learning process, he launched a blog called Thick Paint. Not knowing how a piece would turn out, he courageously recorded himself exploring a medium, such as oil paint thickened with marble dust. Through his experimentation, he honed his techniques and attracted hundreds of thousands of views. Ultimately, he abandoned all of his thickeners in favor of simply using thick paint in his landscapes.

Silence of Snow and Stone by landscape artist Brad Teare

“I spent a decade trying to develop this method or this style, and I just wouldn't give up on it. Seasoned professionals would say: ‘If you paint thinner, you'll have more control,’ and you can get the values and the drawing and everything right if your paint's thinner. I just refused to do it. I just pressed on painting thickly. It was kind of a stubborn thing because in the early days, it was really difficult, and it felt like I was kind of punishing myself,” Brad Teare said. “But once you get proficient at it, it’s a beautiful thing. Part of it is the marbling of the color, but also (adding) the texture in the right place, where there's this hierarchy of texture: thinner and then thicker. It invites the viewer to come forward, and they want to touch it. You want to feel it more than see it, and I think that's an impulse that's somehow satisfying.”

Using a palette knife with the thick oil paints imparts what he calls a marbling effect; he can add two to four colors on the knife, swipe it on the canvas, and it appears to be marbled. With one stroke of the knife, he achieves the effect of Impressionists who dab on complementary colors. 

“It gives a beautiful luminosity that I just couldn't get with brushes. It gives a real spark, a real vibrancy. You can get a lot of that kind of color vibration going, and I love that,” Teare said.

He believes that art is energy, which can move people emotionally and even heal. Painting provides a way to center himself and experience that sense of flow, or timelessness.

“It’s actually an essential part of my life at this point. I can have that deep meditation or contemplative moments that last for hours while I'm painting,” he said. “Hopefully that can be conveyed to people — and people do communicate that they find my paintings peaceful, relaxing and centering. So, I think there is something that's transferred in that. If I'm feeling that, it goes into the painting.”

His new pieces include: Alpine Pond, Alpine Radiance, Autumn Road, Mountain Light, Mountain Path, Verdant Hills and Silence of Snow and Stone. 

Within the collection, wintery mountains, lakes and trees impart a sense of serenity and strength, while paintings like Alpine Pond, Alpine Radiance and Autumn Road generate visceral sparks of excitement, with deep blue rivers and captivating yellow, orange and red fall foliage.