Bryan Rapp is an American sculptor, teacher, and Director of the Wallace Master Sculptor Program at historic Brookgreen Gardens near Pawleys Island, South Carolina.

Background

Bryan has enjoyed making art for nearly 50 years. Beginning with Saturday morning cartoons, Bryan learned to draw super heroes, and then Western themed subjects, monsters, athletes, and space fiction characters. As Bryan approached his college years, he fully believed he would one day play professional hockey or baseball, but was instead swept away by the culture of the Grateful Dead and Grunge music, and it was inside of this world where he made many lasting friendships with other artists, musicians, writers, and theater people. In 2000, with dreams of one day working in Hollywood, he enrolled at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in the Computer Animation program through 2002. In 2004, Rapp apprenticed for two years with sculptor Alan Cottrill in his Ohio studio and foundry. From 2013 to 2016, Bryan attended the University of Oklahoma and earned his Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture while studying under sculptors Paul Moore, FNSS, and Sohail Shehada. In 2016, Rapp was hired as the first ever Artist in Residence at Coastal Carolina University and fabricated a twelve foot tall school mascot in bronze for the school football stadium, relying only on student assistance. In 2020, Bryan became the first Director of the Master Sculptor Program at Brookgreen, where he assists in the development of educational programming that includes week-long sculpture workshops with the very best American representational sculptors.

What We've Achieved