Kenny McBride

Kenny McBride is a pop surrealist who specializes in fine art, murals, live painting, and art workshop instruction. Fifth generation Californian, he has lived in Long Beach since 2015. Kenny attended Orange County School of the Arts, majoring in Visual Arts, where he was educated in fine art, figure drawing, and animation. Highly involved in the community, he has held residencies at Art X and then Made by Millworks, and often shows his art in various establishments throughout SoCal. Kenny’s passion has grown into starting a family business called McBride Arts, where he teamed up with his wife & fellow artist, Anna. Together they offer murals, fine art commissions, and painting workshops for public and private parties.
With over 30 completed murals, his work sites range from public bridges, businesses, restaurants, churches, schools and residences. He specializes in trompe l’oeil murals, transforming flat walls into 3D worlds with photorealistic details and impactful illusions.
Utilizing unique and varying perspectives to build symbolic narratives of other worlds, Kenny’s characters and storylines invoke a sense of stepping into a bright and fantastic dream.
Kenny’s motivation to do art began in childhood with the pursuit to illustrate his imagination and evolved to inspire the viewer to get lost in their own imagination, heal, transform space, engage critical thought and most often, to just smile. His fine art is playful and approachable, executed with a variety of technique and mediums. Color and imagination are at the core of the artist’s style. Often times, Kenny paints onto canvas in acrylic and enhances the surface by adding multimedia elements such as clay, paper, pastel, glitter and various other mixing mediums. Plein Air is also his regular pastime, as Kenny finds the practice meditative and informative to study natural lighting, colors and movement.