Bryce Speed
Associate Professor of Art, Painting
- (205) 348-1901
- bryce.speed@ua.edu
- Woods Hall 215
- Website
Education
- MFA, The University of Alabama, 2005
- BFA, University of Mississippi, 1999
About

Before coming to The University of Alabama in 2014, Mississippi native Bryce Speed taught at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and Central Community College in Columbus, Nebraska. Speed’s work has been included in numerous exhibitions over the past decade. In 2017, he had a solo exhibition at the North Wall Arts Center in Oxford, UK. In 2015-16 he exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy Open Exhibition in Edinburgh, Scotland and at the Visual Art Exchange’s Contemporary South Exhibition in Raleigh, NC during 2016. In 2014, he held a solo exhibition at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, GA and was part of a three-person exhibition at HERE Art Center in New York, NY, titled Suburbia: Is Anyone There? In 2006 and 2011 his work was selected for publication in New American Paintings, Southeastern and Midwestern editions. Since 2017, he has been represented by Cole Pratt Gallery in New Orleans, LA.

Professor Speed’s 2020 solo exhibition, Bryce Speed: The Floating World, at Venvi Gallery in Tallahassee, Fla., was postponed because of health concerns around the coronavirus – then moved online to a virtual exhibition. At the end of March, his exhibition was named one of Artnet.com’s 13 favorite virtual gallery shows in the US (and the only one not in NY or LA).
Professor Speed describes his approach to painting: “The natural world provides many visual analogies for the great depth and mysteries of the human mind. These paintings illustrate a boundless inner life, amplified by our senses, and its extension in to the world. Fluid topographies, discontinuous scale and color suggest the expansive and conflicting systems of nature as a metaphor for the evolving self. Language further helps us understand our interactions and place in the world, but is limited in scope to define our most unexplainable experiences and interactions. Painting can connect form and idea in a way that is unique to the medium and I try to embrace this possibility in my work.”
Exhibitions
2022
- Think It and Breath It, The Arts Council Gallery, Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center, Tuscaloosa (solo)
- 7th Art of the South Exhibition, Zeitgeist, Nashville, Tennessee (Katie Delmez, juror)
- A Plot Hatched by Two, Warbling Collective at Yorktown Workshops, London, UK (juried)
- Bryce Speed / Celeste Laborde, Gallery VOX, Tarrant City, Alabama
- Everyday, Evermore, Venvi Art Gallery in Tallahassee, Florida (solo)
2021
- Imagination and Crisis: New Paintings by Bryce Speed, Creative Arts Gallery, College of the Redwoods, Eureka, California, Aug. 30 – Oct. 14, 2021
- Bryce Speed: Neon Afternoon, Hoover Public Library, Hoover, Alabama, Nov. 4 – Dec. 31, 2021.
- Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) artist residency fellowship
2020

- Bryce Speed: The Space Between, Cole Pratt Gallery, New Orleans (solo), Aug.-Sept. 2020
- Bryce Speed: The Floating World, Venvi Gallery, Tallahassee, Florida (solo)
2019
- Seeing Through, sUgAR Gallery, Fayetteville, Arkansas (juried)
- Bryce Speed, University Art Gallery, University of North Alabama, Florence (solo)
- 2019 Faculty Biennial Exhibition, Sarah Moody Gallery of Art, Tuscaloosa, Ala.
- Color 2019, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA) Museum, Gimpo, South Korea (invitational)
- In Between, Red Arrow Gallery, Nashville, Tenn. (3-person show)
- Water Water, Walter Anderson Museum of Art, Ocean Springs, Miss. (invitational)
- Connections, A1LabArts, Knoxville, Tenn.
- Psychic Reader: Narratives of the Sea by Bryce Speed, Walnut Gallery, Gadsden, Ala. (solo)
- 2019 Valdosta National, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, Ga. (juried, First Place)
2018
- Painting in the 21st Century, Site: Brooklyn, Brooklyn, N.Y. (juried)
- Northern National Juried Art Competition, Nicolet College, Rhinelander, Wis.
- Group exhibition, Cole Pratt Gallery, New Orleans, La.
- 41st Annual Small Works National Juried Art Exhibition, Harper College, Palatine, Ill. (catalog)
- Body, LIT Gallery, Chattanooga, Tenn. (group exhibition)
- Bryce Speed, New Paintings and Drawings. Eichold Gallery, Spring Hill College, Mobile, Ala. (solo exhibition)
2017
- Fertile, Prospect 4 Satellite Site, TEN Gallery, New Orleans, November
- PaperWest National Works on Paper Juried Exhibition, Gittins Gallery, Salt Lake City (juror: Willie Cole)
- Home, Rockland Center for the Arts, West Nyack, N.Y.
- Space Song, North Wall Art Center, Oxford, U.K., April 19 – May 5
- Residency, Hambidge Art Center, Raburn Gap, Ga., July
- Bryce Speed, Lowe Mill Arts and Entertainment, Huntsville, Ala., July 2-31
Conferences
- SECAC 2018 – Chaired panel: “Representation amidst Abstraction: A Look at Contemporary Painting that Utilizes Both Representational and Non-Representational Aspects”
- Float the Earth, Birmingham Public Library, Jan. 8-Feb. 27, 2015 – Interview with Bethany Mitchell.
- Through the Trees, Marilyn Foley Art Gallery, University of Mobile, Jan. 12-Feb. 27. 2015
- Bryce Speed, solo exhibition, WonderRoot Gallery, Atlanta, Jun. 25-Aug. 4, 2015
- A.I.R. Studio Residency, Paducah, Kentucky, July 2015
- Places and Offhand Geometry, solo exhibition, TEN Gallery, New Orleans, Oct. 3-Nov. 1, 2015
- Jack King & Bryce Speed – Sculpture & Mixed Media Paintings, Valdosta State University Fine Arts Gallery, Valdosta, GA
- Suburbia: Is Anyone There? HERE Art Center, New York, NY