The world seems to carry on as if there aren’t a million reasons to be shocked. But because I don't want to go numb, I try to paint them, at least a few. For these, I paint figuratively, as I was trained, even though now, often, my desires, and my output, is abstract. Still, how can we ignore the drought in Afghanistan, the strife in Sudan, the war in Gaza, the invasion of Ukraine? Or even what goes on in our own lives?
So here are three paintings from the last year. They depict scenes from our border with Mexico, of refugees in the DRC, and emergency workers in Kiev, after a successful drone bomb. It all exceeds my strength, and art can't do much. But we must do something, no?
Migrants on the border
Refugees DRC
Ukraine Emergency Workers
Owen Brown
I was born in Chicago, trained as a classical musician, took my first art class at 23, and much of what I've wanted to do since then has been paint.
I have degrees from Yale College and the University of Chicago, and was a degree student at California College of the Arts. I lived for over 30 years in San Francisco, where I was represented by Meridian Gallery. I now live in Minneapolis. I exhibit all over the place.
When asked why I paint, I fall back on this: Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking. The source of my practice is the world with all its beauty and confusion – nature, so alien and alluring, the social, equally baffling but no less wonderful, and the uncomfortable friction between that, and our internal interpretations.
Life eludes easy understanding or conclusion: what are we seeing when we really think about it and how did we miss it before?
I have degrees from Yale College and the University of Chicago, and was a degree student at California College of the Arts. I lived for over 30 years in San Francisco, where I was represented by Meridian Gallery. I now live in Minneapolis. I exhibit all over the place.
When asked why I paint, I fall back on this: Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking. The source of my practice is the world with all its beauty and confusion – nature, so alien and alluring, the social, equally baffling but no less wonderful, and the uncomfortable friction between that, and our internal interpretations.
Life eludes easy understanding or conclusion: what are we seeing when we really think about it and how did we miss it before?