in Bloom | Colin Brown | May 2021 | Kilmorack Gallery

COLIN BROWN in

BLOOM

cover and opposite Gloxinia mixed media 50cm x 50cm

COLIN BROWN in

BLOOM

new botanical paintings

May 2021

Redcurrant mixed media 28cm x 19cm

in

BLOOM

new botanical paintings For the past fifteen years my work has focused primarily on urban subjects, involving regular trips to large European cities to visit galleries, museums and to collect materials for new work.

During one of these trips I visited an Anselm Kiefer exhibition in Berlin. On the gallery walls beside Kiefer’s monumental paintings was text written by the artist - titled ‘Over your cities grass will grow.’ This was a profound statement on modern life, humanity and the environment.

Thinking back to that day the seed was planted there for my move from urban to nature.

My urban paintings had often featured birds and flowers in the composition, initially in a small way. Over time the botanical references became more prominent and the idea of working directly with flowers was starting to form.

At the start of 2020 my work took a definite new direction towards this, and I began a group of small mixed media paintings on paper. I gave this series the provisional title ‘Altered Redouté’ - my homage to the 18th century Belgian flower painter Pierre-Joseph Redouté. Taking a Redouté image as my starting point I alter, paint over and add collage elements to produce a contemporary response to his work.

During the three-month lockdown in my studio I researched and fine-tuned my approach to this project.

As the world was slowing to a stop my new focus on the natural world felt somewhat prescient - as all travel

was banned and nature came to the fore in my daily life.

For me the essence of these new works is the setting up of a direct conversation with an artist from a different age. A single Redouté flower is the basis of each composition. I then add a mix of modern-day elements including repeated circular forms, fragments of text, dot patterns and paint splashes. Traces of humankind float through these images of nature.

As in the urban paintings every element of the composition will be constantly re-examined until the whole image is precisely how I want it to be. The small works feel to me like icon paintings while a new group of larger pieces are more like portraits of flowers.

In the months since returning to my studio this series has steadily grown, with fresh ideas and approaches constantly coming into play Now, with this exhibition at Kilmorack Gallery, a selection of these new nature-inspired works will be exhibited in public for the first time. The series continues to develop and move forward, with fresh ideas and approaches constantly coming into play. I am very excited by the possibilities and discoveries to come.

Colin Brown, April 2021

Tulips mixed media 80cm x 60cm

Gloxinia mixed media 50cm x 50cm

Harlequin Flower mixed media 28cm x 19cm

Orange Lily mixed media 28cm x 19cm

Shell Ginger mixed media 28cm x 19cm

Mexican Lily mixed media 28cm x 19cm

Devil's Trumpet mixed media 28cm x 19cm

Brown Iris mixed media 28cm x 19cm

Egyptian Lily mixed media 28cm x 19cm

Boursault Rose mixed media 28cm x 19cm

Iris 2 mixed media 80cm x 60cm

Camilia mixed media 50cm x 50cm

Altered Redoubté Prior to lockdown in March 2020, Colin Brown began work on a new collection of mixed media paintings in response to the work of 18th Century Belgian Botanical artist PierreJoseph Redouté. In his solo exhibition In Bloom, Brown has created a prescient, life affirming body of work, an unconscious reflection of our deepening need for reconnection with Nature.

Brown’s focus on detailed examination of Pierre-Joseph Redouté and the flowers he painted takes this historical work to a new place. The element of play in the studio and free flow of found, drawn and painted elements, achieves a heightened sense of interconnectivity and balance. The contemplation of each flower introduces spontaneous marks, unexpected colour and abstract spheres, suggesting ever expanding circles of life.

These organic forms spark a tracery of thoughts, dots and dashes, like the flight of bees or droplets of water on a spider’s web, full of proactive energy and wonder. Circular rhythms invoke the sun, moon, and seasons, essential for growth in every living organism. This inner design is mirrored in collage as a creative process, powered by intuition and the joy of free association, with strength of composition at its core. The dynamics of tension between recognisable elements reimagined fire new ways of seeing. Renewal through imagination is the free form promise of collage. Brown’s masterful paintings bring found imagery and painterly discipline together with global insight and verve. This shift of focus, from urban, material culture, to the nature of culture itself and what nurtures us as humans, is pure Zeitgeist. Where once fragments of organic imagery were accents in the composition, here they are placed centre stage.

In the Dadaist tradition, Colin Brown’s ‘joy of collage’ takes fragments of society and radically transforms them. What makes Brown’s work unique is his innate positivity and quiet resolve, the delight in finding and using material that would otherwise

Garland mixed media 80cm x 60cm

go unnoticed and seeing the world anew in the process. His work celebrates our imaginative capacity to grow, with vision, intellect and all senses firing. The seeds for the In Bloom series can be found in works like Coltrane (2019, mixed media), where the spirit of American Jazz saxophonist John Coltrane unites with Brown’s composition and the elevated presence of two blooms. In previous urban collages, the introduction of imagery from John James Audubon’s ornithological works and Marianne North’s botanical paintings felt more like musical texture, here these natural elements have their own voice and energetic presence.

In Brown’s In Bloom series, the artist’s raw material encompasses the 18th Century Age of Enlightenment and 19th Century rise of Naturalism. Many of Pierre-Joseph Redouté’s prolific watercolours were published as coloured engravings, reflecting the increasing popularity of observing nature and determining our place within it, just as the industrial revolution began to take hold. Now amid a digital revolution and global pandemic, stopping to pause and connect with the intimate scale of flowers feels completely apt and increasingly pertinent.

Brown’s multi-layered work has always embraced the tactile and is part of a strong lineage of cultural identity and ideas, celebrated in his 2019 solo exhibition Love Letter To Europe.

The In Bloom series equally pays homage to those roots of understanding, through the work of one of the greatest (though today largely unknown) botanical artists the world has ever seen. Brown’s treatment of the subject is akin to portraiture, every individual possessed of unique qualities, pulsing with life and part of a continuum. The beauty of these blooms is the hope they engender. This positive sense of determination and integrity, striving for balance, defines Colin Brown’s work. Here in conversation with an artist of a different age, the result is fresh, compelling and brimming with optimism.

Georgina Coburn, April 2021

Magnolia mixed media 80cm x 60cm

Fire Lily mixed media 28cm x 19cm

01463 783 230 art@kilmorackgallery.co.uk by beauly, inverness-shire iv4 7al

ISBN 978-1-8384862-0-4