JENNY BROWN
Jenny Brown makes art that questions our understanding of time, space, energy, and matter. With a focus on visualizing the most peculiar & fantastic phenomena of the natural world, her collages and drawings are first and foremost celebrations of the ongoing physical and spiritual evolution of our universe.
Brown is a 1996 graduate of Bennington College and received her MFA in 2005 from The School of Visual Arts, where she focused on the study of painting, drawing, and collage. She moved to Rhode Island in 2008, and currently works out of an antique and vintage paper filled studio in Providence’s Olneyville neighborhood. Over the past year, her work has been shown at The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, NE; One Mile Gallery in Kingston, NY; and Drive-by Projects in Watertown, MA. Her collages were also recently featured in Candyfloss Magazine's "The Enchanted Issue,” and the inaugural issue of Juniper Rag Magazine.
www.jennybrownart.com
“Strawberries & Stars.” Pen, ink, acrylic, & collage on recycled mat board, 2021. 14” x 18”
“As an artist who sees the process of creating art as non-linear, I find that I experience the past, present, and future lives of my work all simultaneously. The use of layered antique collage, which comes into my work already steeped in its own rich histories, provides the building blocks for illustrating the complexities of what was, what is, and what could be.”
“Apricot Homage to the Forgotten Art of Flower Arranging on the Moon.” Pen, ink, acrylic, & collage on recycled mat board, 2021. 9” x 12”
“When I was 19 and a painting student Bennington College, the life of an artist was presented to me as almost a beautiful dream: a messy loft in New York City, ramen noodles for dinner. I got an internship at Art in General gallery in NYC in 1994 and got a chance to live that fantasy. I slept on a couch in an apartment in Soho with people I barely knew, existed on pita bread and coffee. I was hungry and tired, and I loved every minute of it.”
“Night Plant.” Pen, ink, acrylic, & collage on recycled mat board, 2021. 11” x 14”
“After graduating from college, the harsh truth set in: I wasn't from a wealthy family, and I didn’t have a trust fund to fall back on, so I needed to make money—not only to live, but to pay back the money I had borrowed to go to art school. I worked as a barista, a teacher, a waitress, a telemarketer, a medical secretary, and pretty much everything in between. I was broke but happy. But I was tired of people asking me when I would get a real job, tired of nervous calls from my family asking me what the heck I was doing.”
“What We Found on the Moon,” 2019.
“One night, I was in Paris at a party, and I told another guest, who was French, that I was an artist. Their face immediately lit up, and they proceeded to ask me all about my work and life like it was a CAREER. It had never happened to me before. And it was all the motivation I needed to keep going.”
“Citrus Sea Cactus.” Pen, ink, acrylic, & collage on recycled mat board, 2020. 12” x 16”
“The gathering of paper ephemera is a huge part of my process and, really, the roots of every piece of work I make. I am lucky enough to work with a great group of antique, old book, and vintage goods dealers who have gotten to know me over the years and know the types of items I am looking for. But my creative process changes quite a bit once I acquire the materials. Sometimes a book will sit on my desk for years before I know where and how to use it. And I often have multiple collages in process on my desk at the same time, all in different stages of completion. I sometimes finish a piece in a few hours. But I also have half-finished works waiting months for the right collage clippings to complete their story.”
“Interstellar Jewel Box.” Pen, ink, acrylic, & collage on recycled mat board, 2019. 32” x 40”
“My flower-creature hybrids came to be after years of dense charcoal drawing in the early 2000s (which I now realize were actually the creation of the "space" that my beings evolved from). As my drawings became lighter, the florals began to take center stage in my work.”
“Caramel Sea Flower.” Pen, ink, acrylic, & collage on recycled mat board scrap, 2020. 12” x 16”
“The inspiration for my work comes from many places: from a desire to understand the natural world (as a person who until recently had spent very little time in nature); from a sense of time not being linear (and what that can mean for the history of a being such as person, plant, jellyfish, etc); and from a sense of deep nostalgia (for what was, what could have been, or what still could be). I want to illustrate the complexities of trying to both understand and come to terms with how our spirit may fit into the overall story of the universe.”