Sep.

17

Cecily Brown

Pyjama Game, 1998
oil on linen

“I think the desire to be new is just as bad as the desire to be fashionable. It’s a losing game.”

By now, you know that I believe artists are some of the coolest people on the planet. I love getting into their heads, trying to understand why they paint what they do, why they see what they see, and how they perceive the chaotic world we live in.

More than anything, I admire their creativity, their gutsiness.

CECILY BROWN’s work has been described as sexy, sensuous, twisted and sophisticated. Interestingly, Cecily has said that she creates groups of paintings posing as a set of questions that she wants to answer in her next series, so she’s been known to work on 20 paintings at once.

I find Cecily’s work that combines figures, landscapes and abstraction, energetic and provocative. Look closely at her brushwork, her use of vivid color and notice how human figures recede into abstraction. Mad genius? No, absolutely cool genius.

Carnival and Lent, 2006-2008
oil on linen

“It sounds disingenuous but I don’t really think of the art of the past as distant. If you go into a museum it is there today.”

Hard, Fast and Beautiful, 2000
oil on canvas

“I always start in quite a loose and free way. I often put down one ground color to begin with and then play off that.”

I Will Not Paint Any More Boring Leaves, 2004
oil on linen

“The viewer is a living, breathing being that moves about in space and I want my paintings to be experienced like that.”

Justify My Love, 2003
oil on linen

“I want the experience of looking at my paintings to be very much like the experience of walking through the world.”

Lady Luck, 1999
oil on linen

“The boundaries of painting excite me. You’ve got the same old materials–just oils and canvas– and you’re trying to do something that’s been done for centuries. And yet, within those limits, you have to make something new or exciting for yourself as well as other people.”

Service de Luxe, 1999
oil on linen