November 20, 2018: Brandon Sadler is a Gwinnett country native who now lives in East Point. Sadler also goes by the name Rising Red Lotus. The bio on Brandon’s website has a beautiful explanation of the significance of the name Rising Red Lotus as follows. “A name which also serves as a mantra telling the story of the lotus who’s roots were sown deep in the mud of good and evil, who gathered nutrients from both sides, and rose to the surface to become whole”. The process of becoming whole has significance for Brandon who grew up bi-racial in the deep south. Sadler experienced some if this “mud” as he expressed in a 2016 interview with ArtsAtl. “I wasn’t accepted by whites, and there were fights and stuff with that. I wasn’t accepted by Blacks because I was light-skinned. Later in life, I had this identity shit going on where I was realizing I could be anything because of that seesaw of ambiguity. Now it’s something I embrace.”
Sadler was immersed in art almost from birth as his mother was an art teacher. He refined his observational skills as a graffiti artist with the name Lean One. He continued his formal art education receiving a fine arts degree in painting and illustration from SCAD Atl. Brandon’s interests in martial arts and kung fu movies led him to a love and understanding of Asian culture. These Asian themes form the basis for much of Brandon’s artwork. Brandon uses multiple disciplines including visual art, calligraphy, writing and film.
Brandon’s trademark visual vocabulary includes a mashup of Chinese calligraphy and graffiti influenced by a year of living in Korea. He has created multiple alphabets of English characters constructed with Asian brushwork. Each alphabet has it own visual attributes. He selects the alphabet that best fits the essence of the mural it adorns. You can see Brandon’s murals created for Living Walls, The Atlanta Beltline, Outerspace Project, and private commissions all over Atlanta. Brandon’s work is also part of the permanent collection of Atlanta’s High Museum of Art.
Link to Brandon Sadler’s website: http://www.risingredlotus.comBack