American Brian Brown (based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) uses traditional oil-on-canvas techniques in his paintings. He grew up near an Air Force base in Texas, and this is evident in his imagery through the airplanes that frequently appear in the background. Other than occasional comments on his online gallery, he doesn’t appear to have an artist’s statement (“The artist proudly affirms that there is no required reading for any work appearing in this exhibition,” says the listing for one of his past gallery shows) and leaves his work up for interpretation.
The paintings combine a realistic aesthetic with surreal subjects. The human figures and props in the paintings are naturalistic, but the overall effect ranges from hyper-realism (such as showing the wrinkles in a subject’s skin in detail) to a style that nearly looks like art deco travel posters. Strange touches (like a dinosaur in the far background of Praise of Folly, a work that features the artist’s grandmother as a model, or a fish in the middle of a field in Ground Fire) add to the surreal effect.
