GABE BROWN
Bio

GABE BROWN
Small History
new paintings

March 14 -
extended to April 22, 2007
Opening Reception:
Wednesday, March 14, 6 -9 pm

Gabe Brown applies an intuitive approach to her investigations of the natural world creating richly layered paintings that combine gestural free association with passages of crisp detail. As a painter she is interested in process, in the way things work, the way things are made. In her images this is reflected in her use of a varied set of painterly techniques to approximate natural and evolutionary processes. For Brown paint takes on the quality of primal clay from which an infinite range of shapes and forms can emerge. From slurried grounds of earthy color bright patches might coalesce into cells, seeds or streams. Plant forms take root with traced lines that can suggest the diagram of a family tree or a chemical notation. Exhalations rise into colored bubbles of birdsong. Utilizing such disparate clusterings of information which share both depictive and abstract, cognitive and noncognitive qualities, Brown creates painterly rebuses that tease the mind. Her choice of title for this group of work, 'Small History', is as layered as the work itself. Is she referring to the generally modest proportions and archeologic character of her paintings, or, as her interest in natural imagery might indicate, is she linking her work and its processes to the larger ongoing creative forces that shape our planet and fill it with life? Either way Brown serves her thoughts in delectable morsels that merge a keen sense of whimsy with more profound considerations.