In her new paintings
Mia Brownell combines painterly skill with a conceptual interest in recent advances in botany and biology. Working within the age old genre of still life Brownell injects a new relevancy by utilizing its' conventions in an investigation into our relationship with food sources, and the very keys to creation. With a fluid old masters touch and jewel-like color she depicts clusters of fruit such as grapes, plums, and pears twining in the coiling structures of DNA, amino acids, and protein chains as revealed in genome theory and genetic mapping. Suspending her images weightlessly against black or white fields, Brownell also alludes to the spiraling motion of the universe making the connection between the twisting intricacies of the microscopic building blocks of life and the grand unraveling patterns of the heavens. Today the structures of life stand increasingly revealed and exposed to scientific experiment, and food sources are increasingly modified through the crossing of disparate genetic materials. In her recent paintings Mia Brownell subtly suggests that there is really nothing 'still' about life.

This is Mia Brownell's first solo exhibition in NYC. Her paintings have been included in group exhibitions throughout the U.S. and in Italy and have been written about in various publications notably the Buffalo News, the Connecticut Review, and the Tufts Journal. She is a recent recipient of grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the New York State Council for the Arts.