Stephen Brown
dal 1/7/2004 al 14/8/2004
Segnalato da
1/7/2004
Stephen Brown
Forum Gallery, Los Angeles
Recent Paintings will feature portraits of Brown's family members, mentors and friends along with still lifes and landscape paintings. Using color and light as the compositional unifier for his paintings, Brown guides his viewers to find beauty in simple, everyday objects, in suffering, in the contours of a face, in the ubiquitous line of the horizon, and even in death.
RECENT PAINTINGS
Los Angeles, CA - On July 2, Forum Gallery will present the first west coast
exhibition of the painter Stephen Brown. Stephen Brown: Recent Paintings
will feature portraits of Brown¹s family members, mentors and friends along
with still lifes and landscape paintings. Using color and light as the
compositional unifier for his paintings, Brown guides his viewers to find
beauty in simple, everyday objects, in suffering, in the contours of a face,
in the ubiquitous line of the horizon, and even in death.
By choosing highly personal subjects, Stephen Brown allows the viewer to see
beneath the surface to the complexity of the whole person and there is a
unique clarity and honesty to the view we are given. His paintings are small
in size and carefully focused, but they have an emotional power and impact
that rivals the largest, most elaborate canvases. This power is derived from
Brown¹s ability to perceive his subjects not just as what they are, but as
what they have lived through.
In his choice of still life subjects, Brown challenges his viewer to find
beauty in the ordinary. Brown arranges potatoes on an everyday plate,
sitting unceremoniously on a shelf, but we notice the way the light
illuminates their shape, their lack of pretension, and their simplicity.
Suddenly we can locate beauty in objects that we might never have stopped to
take notice of before.
Colorado, where Brown was born and raised, is the subject of many of his
landscape paintings. The vibrant colors seen throughout his landscapes are
the result of the complex process of layering color until the right
intensity is achieved. The product is color so deep and rich it seems to
resonate with life. There is an ominous darkness in the clouds, but where
the light illuminates their nebulae, they are beautiful. A closer look at
the definition of the clouds reveals that Brown's brushwork is amazingly
controlled and accurate.
Stephen Brown finds artistic inspiration in the work of George Inness,
Edward Hopper and Jack Beal. He is a recipient of the Academy Award for
Painting from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, NY and of the
Benjamin Altman Award for landscape from the National Academy of Design, NY.
His work is in the collections of the Hofstra Museum, Hempstead, NY; The
Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT; The Albany Museum, Albany, GA; The Speed
Museum, Louisville, KY; and the New Britain Museum of American Art, New
Britain, CT.
Image: Stephen Brown, 'Rush', 2002-04, oil on wood 10 1/2 x 6 1/4 inches
Reception: Friday, July 2, 6:00 Â 8:00 pm
Stephen Brown: Recent Paintings opens with a reception on July 2 from 6:00-
8:00 pm, and will be on view through August 14, 2004.
Hours: Tuesday  Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Forum Gallery
8069 Beverly Blvd. (at Crescent Heights Blvd.), Los Angeles, California
90046