The paintings and sculptures of Glenn Brown are deliquescent in the physical sense of the term, the property possessed by certain solid substances of slow liquefaction by gradual absorption of atmospheric humidity. Both alluring and unsettling, ranging from monstrous to melancholic, Brown’s paintings – like his drawings and sculptures – broadcast a pronounced indifference to common distinctions between good and bad taste, or beauty and abjection.

Executed in the traditional medium of oil paint, his paintings act as trompe-l'oeil, showing swirls of colour which at first glance seem to form a thick impasto, until surfaces reveal themselves to be actually smooth. Deliberately drawing from reproductions, Brown manipulates this imagery, often beyond recognition, before transposing them into works of an unparalleled uncanniness, where colours and forms undergo further re-assessment.īrown could be perceived as the ultimate Mannerist painter, perplexing the viewer with distorted, exaggerated and sometimes grotesque forms. The sources for his works can be found in the works of Old Masters such as Rembrandt and Adolph von Menzel, Surrealists – especially Salvador Dalí – or artists including Karel Appel, Frank Auerbach and Georg Baselitz, as well as sci-fi painters such as Chris Foss. Spanning painting, drawing and sculpture, the artist reflects upon the history of art without confining himself to a specific period.

1966) practice is one in which concerns of a technical, aesthetic and spiritual nature are explored through an eclectic mix of influences. cat., Berlin: Galerie Max Hetzler and Holzwarth Publications, 2006, p. Morton, 'Don't stop me now', in Glenn Brown, exh. These, then, are paintings that are about vision and revision, about tweaks and twists – of a picture, of an expectation – and the pert surprises they produce.” “Some things you might already know about Glenn Brown's paintings: they borrow their motifs from works by the heroes and villains of art history, among others Jean Honoré Fragonard, Georg Baselitz, Frank Auerbach, Salvador Dalí, Rembrandt and sci-fi artist Christ Foss these borrowed motifs undergo formal and chromatic distortions and cross-pollinations whatever the texture of the surface of the work from which they take their imagery (craggy in an Auerbach, smooth in a Dalí), the surfaces of Brown's canvases are absolutely flat, resulting in a kind of trompe-l'oeil the titles of these canvases ( Joseph Beuys, 2001, say, or I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper, 1996) often evoke seemingly incongruous episodes from the art or pop culture of the past that, on reflection, throw skewed light on Brown's skewed work.

Glen brown art