About Kirk Brady & The Mask Collective

Paul Kirk Brady Jr. (1948–2025) was a sculptor, mask maker, and filmmaker whose work bridged the worlds of imagination and craftsmanship. In the late 1970s, at the intersection of cinema and sculpture, Kirk began creating latex masks and alien figures for a planned science fiction film. What began as a personal artistic experiment evolved into a small but passionate creative movement—his “1970s Mask Collective.”

 

Working alongside artist Bill Nelson, Kirk designed and sculpted a series of original creatures that captured the era’s fascination with fantasy and the unknown. Their first collaboration, The Ultimate Alien (1978), was featured in Playboy, Starlog, and Cinemagic magazines, and later appeared on television in Jack Webb’s Project UFO. The masks—Belial, Trog, Bat Demon, Demon, and Space Jockey—became cult favorites, hand-crafted works of art now prized by collectors decades later.

 

Kirk’s creative process reflected both discipline and wonder. Each sculpture was conceived in sketches, refined in clay, and brought to life through paint and imagination. His fascination with the cosmic and the mythological—shaped by artists like H. R. Giger and Frank Frazetta—infused his designs with an otherworldly realism that blurred the line between dream and artifact.

 

Though his professional life centered on founding and leading Matrix Marketing Research in Richmond, Virginia, Kirk’s heart remained with storytelling and creation. In the 1980s, he shifted from mask making to filmmaking, continuing to explore narrative through moving images and visual design. Friends and collaborators often appeared in his films, a testament to the communal spirit of his art.

 

More than forty years later, this archive serves as a tribute to a time when imagination and craft converged—and to an artist who built entire worlds from plaster, pigment, and vision.

 

This website, completed with the help and encouragement of his daughter, Kathryn Brady Combs, finally brings Kirk’s work into the light—preserving the legacy of a sculptor who once dreamed of alien skies and left behind tangible fragments of that dream.