|
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.
THE WORK
The
paintings look like observational studies but they are not
simply what is seen by the eye. Considerations of emotional or
imaginative response, a sense of the past and also an awareness
of the whole process of painting play an essential part. A
painting itself is an illusion but an illusion with a precedent.
Generations of painted images have created a visual language
which is familiar to us and we inevitably use it to read new
Art. Making use of this language, the paintings move freely from
painterly observations to a conscious acceptance, in fact pure
self indulgence in their artificial nature. Sometimes the real
is mixed with the imagined or the remembered, sometimes tromp l’oeil is combined with freely painted pattern. Games are played
with the composition in the traditionally imposed rectangle. In
the process of transferring the image from the real to the
vertical surface of the canvas, which is conventionally seen at
eye level, there can be a change in perception. Above all
working directly from the subject still fires all the senses
into a unique level of sensitivity, encouraging the intuitive
and confining the intellectualizing to the whisky induced time
between painting. Now living in Spain the future is exciting, a
totally new place, new culture, new people and new
ideas……........
|
