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TOM BROWN
 ARTIST PROFILE
Born in 1949 Tom Brown studied ceramics at Manchester in the
early 1970’s. He moved to the Derbyshire Peak District in 1973
and built a workshop and a series of successful wood fired, salt
glaze kilns. He taught Art in Buxton for many years and was Head
of Art department at Fenton College, Stoke on Trent before he
moved to Spain where he now lives. His own work has always been
incredibly important and he has exhibited and sold his pieces
regularly. For a number of years now the emphasis in his work
has shifted from ceramics and is now almost exclusively
concerned with drawing and painting. Many years of caving and
diving, running dogs, whisky and bagpipes, free flying and
travelling in the mountains of Europe, Himalayas and China have
created a rich tapestry of windswept and interesting experiences
and an attitude which provides the background to his approach
to painting.
As you look
across the beautiful Tárbena valley at the spectacular Sierra de
Ferrer and the Bernia mountains you would think an artist could
not resist painting such wonderful scenery. The painter Tom
Brown looks at these mountains everyday from his house and
studio but does not paint them, he prefers to climb them. A
lifetime as an adventurer and traveller, artist and teacher has
had a strong influence on a man who now chooses to live and
paint in the mountains of the Costa Blanca. After one journey
through the Himalayas of Nepal and the highest mountains of the
world the lasting impression he gained was not of the high peaks
but of the people who live there. They live in extreme poverty
but the Nepalese have the nobility and strength that you would
associate with mountain people and yet they are among the
kindest and gentlest people in the world.
“I am moved like everybody by the power of nature and in
particular the almost spiritual feeling you can experience on
the top of a mountain but I have found no way to fully express
it in painting. Few artists, poets or musicians have been able
to interpret these phenomena with the same intensity you feel in
the real situation. Maybe the English painter W M Turner came
closest 200 years ago. However I do feel moved by the human
condition and I am always excited by the visual possibilities
and the endless ways that exist to express ideas about people.”
Tom Brown and his wife Liz have spent the last five years
building their house and studio in the Tárbena valley. Having
spent a lifetime choosing to live outside of their comfort zone,
moving into a new place with lots of new challenges not least of
which has been learning a new language and making a new life,
the last five years have indeed been a rich and full experience.
During the last year with the house finished life has become
much sweeter and they love it and are happily committed to their
new life in Spain.
“Now I have more and more time to spend on my own painting at
last I have the time to strike a balance between painting and
thinking. I understand that in the past with full time teaching
commitments my paintings have been on safe ground with only
limited development. Now is the time to leap into the void and
take some chances! As the controversial British artist Tracey
Emin said “I am standing on the edge of a precipice but it is a
wonderful view...
I have a two pronged attack. I have always had a liking for
complex process and the complicated multi layered techniques
offered by oil painting. I also want to respond to the strong
Spanish character and the new culture that is all around me. My
first line of thought is to paint the people in fiesta mode in
the spectacular costumes of the Moros and Cristianos fiestas. It
is a theme close to the feeling of the work I have done in the
past using rich and decorative subjects. I have been working on
three paintings on this theme based on last year’s fiestas in
Callosa d’en Sarriá. The largest and most ambitious painting is
of a Moro prince on horseback. It has been something of a
penance with many hours spent on detail and the challenge of
rendering the many different types of material. By taking on
such a technically ambitious project I was also using it as an
opportunity to totally immerse myself in the painting process
and to improve the fluency in my painting.
My second line of thought is still based on people and requires
much more thinking and is really where I want to go as a
painter. I have taught young people all my life and now I have
seven grandchildren, young people and their future are of
concern to me. I had a discussion recently with a friend of mine
who is a psychologist and has great affinity with the creative
process. She said that the true artist must reflect the pain in
the world, it is their responsibility. This helped me
crystallize my thoughts because my feelings are of a more
optimistic nature. One thing that has stayed with me after years
of teaching is that young people always enter the world with
fresh optimism. Like all previous generations they believe they
can make a difference and want to improve on what was there
before. The next generation of young people has perhaps the
greatest challenge yet with the environmental issues they will
have to deal with. Without their optimism and without our
support we will change nothing. Other artists and the television
news can deal with the pain. Some of the best people I have
known have been 17 and 18 years old and I want to deal
positively with the future, their future.
I find it is possible in everybody’s face to detect conflicting
emotions which often are visible at the same time; determination
with anxiety or arrogance paralleled with insecurity. I think
this phenomenon is even more transparent in the faces of young
people. They have a determination and enthusiasm to deal with
the future yet this is combined with a certain lack of
confidence clearly because this is the first time for them. More
than any other artist, I think Rembrandt has been able to
capture this ambiguity and with such success that he almost
touches the very soul of his subject. This is where I want to
go.
During 2009 I have been working on a painting called ‘A
conversation with Goya’. I have painted a young Spanish face
which displays the pride and attitude which is so Spanish. She
is both strong and yet uncertain. I am no longer concerned with
becoming a slave to achieving a likeness. I am concerned more
with searching for the qualities which express the emotions I am
trying capture. I start with a face that interests me and then
take the rest of the journey in my imagination. The context and
the story develop along the way suggested by my own dialogue
with the painting. It is a wonderful feeling of liberation with
open ended possibilities. However sometimes I do think I have
liberated myself from the frying pan only to find it a little
hotter in the fire. In this particular painting there are also
references to Goya whose work I am drawn to more and more as
part of my journey to get to know Spain.
As fits my ideas, I am living in a very beautiful part of Spain
but my heart is with the people I have got to know and have
become friends with. Interestingly the small minority of people
who choose to move here and live in the mountains are of a
different type and their nationality is of little importance.
Without doubt the most important connection has been with our
friends from Tárbena who have always lived in the mountains.
Although I now live in Spain I cannot become Spanish; I live in
the campo but I will never be a campesino but I love the life
here and I have total respect and a wish to be part of a
community with people who are.
The richness that can be gained from living in a new place with
new people provides the substance not only to my life but to my
painting. Living in a new place somehow allows you to take one
step backwards to observe the human condition and see things
more clearly.”
“The view is wonderfully clear from the edge of the precipice ….
the future is exciting.”
click on
individual pictures to enlarge or
here
for a slide show ....
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