Brad Kahlhamer is an American artist born in 1956 in Tucson, Arizona. Of Native American descent, he was adopted by a German-American family and raised in Wisconsin. Due to sealed adoption records, he never knew his biological parents, which has led him to explore themes of identity and Indigenous culture in his work.
Before dedicating himself fully to art, Kahlhamer spent a decade as a traveling musician across the Midwest. In 1982, he earned a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and later moved to New York. There, he worked for ten years as an illustrator and art director for Topps Chewing Gum Company before becoming a full-time artist in 1993.
Kahlhamer’s artistic practice spans sculpture, drawing, painting, performance, and music. His work explores what he calls the "third place"—a meeting point of his contrasting personal histories. His style combines elements of German Expressionism with a personal iconography reflecting his Native American heritage, German-American upbringing, and adult life in New York’s Lower East Side.
His work has been exhibited in numerous prestigious institutions, and his pieces are part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, among others.
In addition to visual art, Kahlhamer is an accomplished musician, writing, performing, and producing his own music. He has also contributed album artwork for bands such as Man Man.
Currently, he divides his time between New York and Mesa, Arizona, continuing to explore the complexities of identity through his multidisciplinary art.