Dan’s Papers January 21, 2011 danspapers.com Page 31
HONORING THE ARTIST
by Marion Wolberg Weiss
Jen Brown Believe it or not, this week’s cover painting by Jen Brown is not from the artist’s imagination or from a photograph. It is a real image of what the outdoors looks like when the moon rises. If such an image recalls another world or even another planet, that is the allure of Brown’s oil paintings. The work has other intriguing aspects: it is both expressionistic and fantasy-like, its color, composition and shadowing contributing to the arresting mood. Most of all, however, the image makes a strong statement about nature’s beauty and ambiguity. In a word, the cover perfectly expresses Brown’s aes-
Art
thetic intentions: her love of nature, expression of clear statements, and her penchant for certain formal qualities like color and composition. Q: Let’s start with your attraction to nature, an element we are all so involved with now that the winter weather is upon us. How has nature inspired you? A: I have always been involved with celestial bodies, particularly the moon rising and setting. The way the moon goes from a full moon to a crescent one. My grandmother also inspired me a lot. I grew up in Connecticut but lived with my grandmother here in the summers. Q: How did that experience influence you? A: I remember taking nature walks with her, and she would pick up a leaf and hold it in her hand. Even that small experience had a great impact. My grandmother is a legend. She would swim 365 days a year with no wet suit. Everyone would ask me if I were going to do that. I do swim, but only May to November. And with a wet suit. Q: Perhaps your grandmother influenced your art, too. A: She went to Vassar in the late 1920s and majored in art. She was a rebel, coming from a Protestant minister family who first came to America some time after the Mayflower to convert the Indians.
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but meaningful in two particular pieces: Robbins’s fruit in the foreground and a painting of the same fruit in the background and Kustura’s poster of a woman and an airplane. Perhaps control and spontaneity are present after all between the static images (control) and the moving ones (spontaneous). While the dynamics of opposition may guide Williams’s choices, her exhibits are also varied to include different styles (like abstraction, Surrealism and Pete Turner’s fantasy) and subjects (like Ralph
Carpentier’s landscapes and Cynthia Knox’s skyscapes, for examples). At times, we can even perceive Conceptualism at work in Waller’s art. If we were to name Williams’s prevailing aesthetic, however, we would single out the importance of “line” in her artists’ pieces: sensuous, defined, and powerful. Call Pamela Williams Gallery (631-267-7817) for hours and days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) about the current show.
Q: How about your own background in art and what artists have influenced you? A: I have a MFA from the New York Studio School. Particularly, I love Richard Serra’s sculptures. His simplicity in form is what I try for, to make a very clear statement as well. Hans Hoffmann is also a huge influence: his clear statement and use of color. Q: You have also been influenced by traveling. A: I have gone to Europe to study paintings and frescos. Painters teach through their work, and I can learn from them. Q: Where did you go? A: The Czech Republic, France, Italy, Austria. In 2005, I was wandering around and went to see a Titian in a castle in the Czech Republic. Q: And what did you discover from this art? A: You discover composition for one thing. I like analyzing the work. There’s information there. Q: You have traveled to other places more recently to learn about art, but in a different way. A: We have gone to Puerto Rico and hiked in the rain forest. I tied my son, Tommy, to my back and I drew as we walked. The same thing in Venice, going up and down the steps, drawing all the way. We also go to St. Johns Island in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I have done paintings of Tommy running around on the beach. I make compositions of these, creating a transformation of all these movements into something else. Materials plus nature equal something else. Q: Speaking of nature, I think your cover showed an ambiguity about nature. What does nature mean to you? A: Nature is crazy and full of suspense. You don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s spontaneous. Brown’s work can be seen at Jill Lynn and Co. in Southampton. Call 631-287-1001 for information.
15TH ANNUAL
SNOWBALL 2011 Save the Date January 29, 2011 January 29, 2011 8:00 p.m. 8:00 p.m. Oceanbleu
Oceanbleu at Bath & Tennis Hotel at Bath & Tennis Hotel 231 WHB 231 Dune Dune Road, Road, WHB HORS D’OEUVRES, DANCING RAFFLES, PRIZES, MUSIC SEMIFORMAL DRESS - BLACK TIE OPTIONAL
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