Artist: Cecily Brown

Cecily Brown

Cecily Brown was born in London in 1969. she dropped out of high school at the age of 16 to study art, She studied and received her degree, BA in Fine Arts from Slade Scholl of art in London between the years 1989-93.

She also studied drawing rawing and printmaking classes at Morley College in London 1987-89 and BTEC Diploma in Art and Design from Epsom School of Art, Surrey, England (1985-87).

The following year she moved to Manhattan where she lives and works today.
Shortly after moving to the U.S, Brown had her first solo exhibition in New York at Deitch Projects in 1997 and a second in 1998. Her paintings first came to the attention when she called her “bunny gang rape” paintings in a Manhattan gallery in 1997.
Notable collectors including, Charles Saatchi and Agnes Gund, were quick to acquire these works and Brown's career was launched.

This painting is from a later series in which fragmented body parts have been totally consumed by the painterly surface. These paintings have been described by art critic Roberta Smith as “… an attempt to juice up and feminize the shop worn vocabulary of abstract expressionism.” The titles that Brown chooses are often taken from Hollywood movies. In this case, the title is taken from the 1950 classic, Father of the Bride. References to brides,

When David Sylvester and his friend Francis Bacon took Cecily Brown to exhibitions as a girl, she had no idea the art critic was actually her father( David Sylvester, one of Britain's leading art critics ). Now one of the most collectable painters in the world, she is quick to acknowledge the influence of both.

Cecily Brown’s luscious paintings combine figuration and abstraction. Expanding the tradition of expressionism, she draws her influences from painters such as Francis Bacon and Willem de Kooning to put a feminine twist on a male dominated art history.
She has since established herself as one of the key figures in the strong resurgence of painting at the end of the nineties. Brown revels in the freedom she has forged as a young female painter, her work liberates and celebrates the sacred cows of old master figure painting.
Cecily Brown uses paint with an unusual sensuality, her creamy layers and rapturous colours offer sexually charged surfaces in which suggestions of figures emerge. Her paintings are marked by a carnal physicality, in which bodies are fragmented, distorted, and fetishised, and paint becomes a malleable and voluptuous substitute for flesh itself.
Brown’s tones and textures range from teasing frivolity, to the sordid and sweltry. Her work offers a distinctively womanly seduction, imparted with a stylised innocence of a bygone era, where illicit romance and passion are discretely veiled within cultivated codes of social etiquette and decadent fashion.

Cecily Brown’s interest in figuration stems from the narcissistic relation between viewer and depicted body. Attraction through identification plays a central theme in Brown’s work. Her paint insinuates the sensation of physical experience, alluding to bodies in motion.

Her vague characters, both delineated and implied, become surrogates for viewers’ projection. Brown’s gestural abstractions transform as expanded psychological fields. Her paint - spattered, smeared, groped, and battered -- configures in promiscuous spectres; suggestively explicit, her fractured compositions replicate the subconscious formulations of drive and desire.

Brown paints directly onto the canvas without the use of preparatory drawings, giving a sensual texture to her work. Swirling brush strokes in 'Overbite' show both figurative and abstract rabbits caught in a bacchanalian landscape. The overlay of paint on paint gives a feeling that the composition is developing. This makes the surface of the canvas fragile so the gallery actively encourages you to leave your baggage (in lockers) at the door. This is a great metaphor as psychologically you can leave your preconceived ideas about sex outside the exhibition, be open to Brown's depiction and go where that takes you.

Through painting, Cecily Brown conveys both somatic and intellectual eroticism as a metaphysical experience. The corporeal indulgence of her medium reverberates as spiritual enlightenment; this climactic elation is replicated through the artist’s physically intensive process. Each canvas is permeated with an ethereal light, giving both a sense of airy daydream and piercing ecstasy. Cecily Brown’s paintings possess a transfixing aura where painterly reverence and female sexuality reside as destined.
Brown's work has attracted the attention of collectors including Elton John and Michael Ovitz.
Her paintings are in the permanent collections of several important museums and institutions including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, in Buffalo, New York and the Des Moines Art Center, in Des Moines.

Iowa (in 2006 the Des Moines Art Center organized Brown's first one-person museum exhibition in the U.S. - an exhibition that later traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston as well).

Her winter 2000 exhibition at Gagosian Gallery, New York (SoHo) was her first with the gallery. In 2001 Brown had an exhibition at Contemporary Fine Art in Berlin and then in 2003 she had her first Los Angeles show at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills. Since then she has had solo exhibitions at such prestigious institutions as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; the MACRO, Rome; the Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA; Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany; Des Moines Art Center, IA and Modern Art Oxford, England. The artist has also participated in group exhibitions at the Galleria, Arco, Turin, the Saatchi Collection, London, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

She has had solo shows in the Gagosian and Deitch Projects galleries in New York, and in the Victoria Miro and Eagle galleries in London. Brown has also been included in numerous group shows, including "Greater New York"


Excerpts from an interview with Odili Donald Odita in Flash Art, Nov-Dec 2000

Cecily Brown
"Figures are the only thing that I've ever painted. I'm interested in the human need or desire to represent itself. I'm fascinated with human narcissism and obsessions with bodies."

"...I love the trick of painting. You can have the movement within the still thing, but it is completely fixed. And that illusion is constantly exciting."

ODO: It the unanswerable... the insatiable... who, or what are we?

"CB: Yeah, and not to sound too cheesy, but making art is, in a way, a metaphor for that. It's asking questions more than coming up with any answers. In a way that's why they can be read in so many different ways."

ODO: Do you paint with an acknowledgement of Western painting as a reflection of the Caucasian male gaze, or are you conscious of the way you paint your forms as Cecily Brown, the woman?

"CB: I'm afraid this might not be the politically correct answer, but I think that my love of painting has always come before any critique of the fact that it's racist, or sexist. If someone thinks De Kooning is a misogynist that's fair enough. His feelings about his subject are less important to me than whether it works as a striking image, or if it's brilliantly done. It happens that it mostly has been done by men, but that's changing. I must admit, not until I started showing had I heard people say it was nice to see this being done by a woman. I was kind of like, 'duh,' I'm just painting. I heard these responses when I first exhibited those paintings at Deitch Projects. It is kind of a sad thing that we can't necessarily look to a woman artist from the past and say I want to paint like her. I grew up saying I want to paint like Caravaggio or Goya. But, my attitude is that male and female aren't so different, and of course, I can say that. It's a wonderful time to be a woman. Women at the end of the 21st century won't even question their heroes in that way."

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2006 Des Moines Art Center, Iowa.
2005 Paintings, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim.
Paintings, Modern Art Oxford, England.
Recent Paintings, Gagosian Gallery, New York ( Chelsea).
2004 Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin.
Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid.
Galerie Lisa Ruyter, Vienna
2003 MACRO (Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma), Rome. Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills.
2002 Directions—Cecily Brown, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture
Garden, Washington, D.C.
Gagosian Gallery, New York.
2001 Days of Heaven, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin.
2000 Gagosian Gallery, New York ( SoHo).
1999 Serenade, Victoria Miro Gallery, London.
The Skin Game, Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills.
1998 High Society, Deitch Projects, New York.
1997 Spectacle, Deitch Projects, New York (Storefront Gallery).
1995 Eagle Gallery, London.

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2005 Getting Emotional, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.
The Triumph of Painting Part II, Saatchi Gallery, London.
Works on Paper, Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills.
Contemporary Erotic Drawing, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT.
2004 Whitney Biennial 2004, Whitney Museum of American Art,
New York.
A Collector’s Vision, Museum der Moderne Salzburg.
Direct Painting, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim. Drawings, Gagosian Gallery, London.
2003 Gyroscope, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (through 2004).
Under Pressure: Prints from Two Palms Press, Cooper Union, New York
2001 Szenenwechsel XIX, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main.
2000 OO Drawings 2000, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York.
Emotional Rescue: The Contemporary Art Project Collection,
Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle.
Figure: Another Side of Modernism, Newhouse
Center for Contemporary Art at Snug Harbor Cultural Center,
New York
Greater New York: New Art in New York Now, P.S. 1
Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY.
1999 At Century’s End: The John P. Morrissey Collection of 90’s Art,
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Lake Worth, FL.
Pleasure Dome, Jessica Fredericks Gallery, New York. Four
Letter Heaven, David Zwirner Video Library, New York.
Vertical Painting, P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island
City, NY (1999-present).
1997 Janice Guy Gallery, New York.
1996 Taking Stock (curated by Kenny Schacter), New York.
1994 The Fete Worse Than Death, Laurent Delaye, London.
1990 Contemporary View, National Competition for British Art Students.

Selected Works by Cecily Brown

Teenage Wildlife, 2003,
oil on linen, 203.2 X 228.6 cm

Sock Monkey, 2003

Oil paint on linen, 228.6 X203.2 cm

LANDSCAPE, 2003,

Oil paint on linen , 228.6 x 198.1 cm

Girl on a Swing, 2004

Thanks, Roody Hooster, 2004

Oil on linen 103 x 97 inches

These Foolish Things, 2002

Oil on linen, 90 x 78 inches

Pijama Game

Oil on linen, 193 x249 cm

Institution: Royal Academy Of Art

Royal Academy Of Art

The Royal Academy was formed to rival the Society of Artists after an unseemly leadership dispute between two leading architects, Sir Joseph Palmer and James Paine. Paine won, but Palmer vowed revenge and used his strong connections with King George III to create a new artistic body, the Royal Academy, in 1768. It was formally launched the following year.
Its forty founder members, all admitted on 10 December 1768, included a father/daughter combination (George Michael Moser and Mary Moser) and two sets of brothers (George Dance the Younger and Nathaniel Dance-Holland, and Paul and Thomas Sandby).

The Royal Academy does not receive financial support from the state or crown. One of its principal sources of revenue is hosting temporary public art exhibitions. These are of the highest quality, comparable to those at the National Gallery, the Tate Gallery and leading art galleries outside the United Kingdom. In 2004 the highlights of the Academy's permanent collection went on display in the newly restored reception rooms of the original section of Burlington House, which are now known as the "John Madejski Fine Rooms".
Under the Direction of the Exhibitions SecretaryNorman Rosenthal the Academy has hosted ambitious exhibitions of contemporary art including in 1997 "Sensation" the collection of work by Young British Artists owned by Charles Saatchi. The show created controversy for including a painting ofMyra Hindley that was vandalised while on display.

The Academy also hosts an annual Royal Academy summer exhibition of new art, which is a well known event on the London social calendar. It is not as fashionable as was the case in earlier centuries, and has been largely ignored by the trendy Brit Artists and their patrons; however Tracey Emin exhibited in the 2005 show. In March 2007 this relationship developed further when Tracey Emin accepted the Academy's invitation to become a Royal Academician, commenting in her weekly newspaper column that, "It doesn't mean that I have become more conformist; it means that the Royal Academy has become more open, which is healthy and brilliant.
Anyone who wishes may submit pictures for inclusion and those which are selected are displayed alongside the works of the Academicians. Many of the works are available for purchase.
In 2004 the Academy attracted press and media attention for a series of financial scandals and reports of a feud between Rosenthal and other senior staff that resulted in the cancellation of what would have been profitable exhibitions. In 2006, it attracted further press by erroneously placing only the support for a sculpture on display in the belief that it was the sculpture, and then justifying it being kept on display.

In late 2007, the director of the National Gallery, Charles SaumarezSmith, is due to take over as head of the Royal Academy in a newly created post as secretary and chief executive.
The Academy has received many gifts and bequests of objects and money. Many of these gifts were used to establish Trust Funds to support the work of the Royal Academy Schools by providing "Premiums" to students displaying excellence in various artistic genre. The rapid changes that pulsed through 20th century art have left some of the older prize funds looking somewhat anachronistic. But efforts are still made to award each prize to a student producing work that bears a relation to the intentions of the original benefactor.

Royal Academy Schools

The Academy runs a postgraduate art school and a research library. The Royal Academy Schools, the country's oldest art school, is based in Burlington House. There are generally two exhibitions every year of work by Royal Academy students.

Full membership of the academy is limited to 80 Academicians or "RAs", who may be painters, printmakers, sculptors, or architects, and must be "professionally active in Britain".
The Academy's rules are that there must always be at least 14 sculptors, 12 architects, and 8 printmakers; the balance being made up of 46 painters. New Academicians are elected by the existing RAs, and originally had to enter a Diploma Work representative of their œuvre.
Apart from kudos of being elected, full members of the Academy may expect to serve for a time on the governing council of the Academy, and to take part in various committees. Each room in the Summer Exhibition is generally hung by a different R.A.
In common with certain other Royal societies, election as President of the Royal Academy (P.R.A.) practically guarantees a knighthood, if the President is not already of that rank.
A larger number of Associates of the Royal Academy (designated "A.R.A.") are also elected, but being an A.R.A. is not a prerequisite to full membership.
Members of the public can also join the Royal Academy as "Friends" by making a financial donation; outside of public exhibitions, this is one of the RA's main sources of income.

Publication:TATE ETC- The Art Magazine

TATE ETC. MAGAZINE

TATE ETC. MAGAZINE : Published three times a year, TATE ETC. brings focus, depth and

original insight to the work of international artists celebrated in the Tate galleries and beyond.
Each issue presents exclusive, in-depth features and conversations with internationally acclaimed writers and artists - from Rem Koolhaas and Tracey Emin, to John Banville and Lou Reed - in a showcase for outstanding design and fresh imagery.
Keep up with a subscription to TATE ETC. and spend each year in the exclusive company of the artists and authors of the moment.

TATE ETC: is an arts magazine produced within Britain's Tate organisation of arts and museums. Prior to the production of TATE ETC. the Tate produced eight issues in 2002 and 2003 of its forerunner, Tate Magazine, variously called Tate International Arts and Culture and Tate Arts and Culture. TATE ETC. first appeared in the Summer of 2004, and issues have been produced 3 times a year. The masthead of the magazine carries the legend, "Visiting and Revisiting, Art etcetera."

'TATE ETC. always manages to find an original approach to topics you think you knew everything about. Their choice of writers and the elegant design makes it a rewarding read.' Thomas Demand,

Artist
It has taken decades, and the efforts and enthusiasm of many individuals, to make Tate what it is today.

In a continuation of this, our magazine TATE ETC. carries the name – with an additional 'ETC.'. Inspired by the gallery but independent of it, TATE ETC. explores the visual arts scene on an international scale. Tate’s collections, events and projects are the starting point to project the themes and contexts of art far beyond the boundaries of the four galleries.
From essays to interviews, from ancient Tate archives to cutting edge studio work, TATE ETC. follows the work creating the most interesting debate, and explores its context, history and meaning. Within these features, we blend the historic, the modern and the contemporary to show that art does not exist in a vacuum, but is rooted in many traditions.
With Henry Tate's legacy as a springboard, TATE ETC. has gone on to become the largest art magazine in Europe.

TATE ETC. is the internationally acclaimed art magazine from Tate. Each issue includes contributions from outstanding writers, artists and practitioners in their field – from Sigmar Polke and John Banville, to Jenny Uglow and Tracey Emin – offering a fresh and unexpected perspective on historic, modern and contemporary art.

Published in January, May and September, TATE ETC. includes in-depth articles by

internationally acclaimed writers and artists and, like Tate, works as a place for thinking about and experiencing art. It has a strong conversational element in the form of interviews and discussions, and gives a voice to artists.
With a circulation in excess of 95,000, including all Tate Members, patrons and trustees as well as

national and international subscribers, art

bookshops and newsstands, TATE ETC. is Europe's largest art magazine and reaches a distinct and culturally sophisticated audience that is passionate about the visual arts.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for a media pack containing rates for display advertising or inserts, deadlines and our specifications for design.

Gallery: Tate Modern

Tate Modern

Tate Modern is amongst the most prestigious arts venues for corporate entertaining offering versatile event spaces with stunning panoramas across London.

the Tate Modern, Britain’s national museum of Modern Art ,It's face staring blankly across the Thames at St Pauls Cathedral via the Millennium Bridge.
it is hard not to be impressed by the buildings scale and utilitarian appearance.

Since its opening - on time and within budget - in May 2000, Tate Modern has proved to be the very model of a Millennium project. Nearly 16 million people have flocked to see it since it opened, it outperformed the supposedly populist Dome, survived a fly-on-the-wall documentary - even the wobbly Millennium bridge fiasco failed to detract from Tate Modern's triumphant arrival onto London's cultural scene.

At some 500ft long and I 15ft high, this is the centrepiece of the building and the setting for scries of specially-commissioned sculptures. Size does matters here and its fascinating to see how contemporary artists tackle this vast space -Louise Bourgeois's oversized 'spider', Anish Kapoor's 'hearing trumpet' .ind Olafur Eliasson's strangely mesmeric 'Weather Project' have been some of the responses so far.

Tate Modern has become home to the national collection of international 20th century art as well as a venue for new art. Reflecting this spirit of change, its permanent collection displays are thematic rather than chronological and are based on the four major art genres.

The Tate Modern houses works by some of the most influential and famous artists of the modern age. Displays are changed regularly, making life interesting for the regular visitor but rather more difficult for the guidebook compiler.
Expect a challenging mix of big hitters like Picasso, Matisse, Dali, Bacon, Leger, Beuys, Dubuflet, Giacometti, Pollock and Warhol as well as more recent stars such as Sam Taylor Wood, Tony Cragg and Steve McQueen.


Inside, the turbine hall makes a spectacular venue for unique installations
Special exhibitions and displays are held in the galleries on level 4 and recent shows have included Constantin Brancusi and Donald Judd.

Entry to the Tate Modern is free, though there are few attractions anywhere in the world as worthy of a donation as this.
A new Tate to Tate boat service runs from the Tate Britain, past the London Eye to the Tate Modern and is an excellent day trip for those seeking a cultural feast.




The astounding popularity of Tate Modern means that even its spacious galleries and concourses can still get crowded, with queues at its cafes and shops.
The East Room is a flexible and dramatic space filled with natural daylight and can be used for daytime events for up to 100 guests, as well as breakfasts, lunches, dinners and evening receptions for 150 guests.
The popular Members Room on Level 6 has an exclusive balcony to the north and south sides of the building with unrivalled views of the City skyline the Members Room is ideal for a breakfast event or evening reception for up to 130 guests

Acrylic paint

Acrylic paint

Acrylic paint is fast-drying paint containing pigment suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry. Depending on how much the paint is diluted (with water) or modified with acrylic gels, mediums, or pastes, the finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting, or have its own unique characteristics not attainable with the other media.

Acrylics were first made commercially available in the 1950s. These were mineral spirit-based paints called Magna, offered by Bocour Artist Colors. Water-based acrylic paints were subsequently sold as "latex" house paints, although acrylic dispersion uses no latex derived from a rubber tree. Interior "latex" house paints tend to be a combination of binder (sometimes acrylic,vinyl,pva and others),filler,pigment and water. Exterior "latex" house paints may also be a "co-polymer" blend, but the very best exterior water-based paints are 100% acrylic. Soon after the water-based acrylic binders were introduced as house paints, artists (the first of whom were Mexican muralists) and companies alike began to explore the potential of the new binders. Water soluble artist quality acrylic paints became commercially available in the early 1960s, offered by Liquitex.

Techniques

Acrylic artist paints may be thinned with water and used as washes in the manner of watercolor paints, but the washes are not re-hydratable once dry. For this reason, acrylics do not lend themselves to color lifting techniques as do gum arabic based watercolor paints.
Acrylic paints can be used in high gloss or matte finishes. As with oils, pigment amounts and particle size can alter the paint sheen. Likewise, matting agents can be added to dull the finish. Topcoats or varnishes may also be applied to alter sheen.
When dry, acrylic paint is generally non-removable. Water or mild solvents do not re-solubilize it, although isopropyl alcohol can lift some fresh paint films off. Toluene and acetone can remove paint films, but they do not lift paint stains very well and are not selective. The use of a solvent to remove paint will result in removal of all of the paint layers, acrylic gesso, etc.
Only a proper, artist-grade acrylic gesso should be used to prime canvas in preparation for painting with acrylic. It is important to avoid adding non-stable or non-archival elements to the gesso upon application. Acrylic will not form a stable paint film if it has been thinned with more than 30% water content. However, the viscosity of acrylic can successfully be reduced by using suitable extenders that maintain the integrity of the paint film. There are retarders to prolong drying and workability time and a flow release to increase color blending ability.

Prior to the 20th century, artists mixed their own paints to increase the longevity of the artwork and achieve desired pigment load, viscosity, and to control the use of fillers, if any. While suitable mediums and raw pigments are available for the individual production of acrylic paint, due to the fast drying time, hand mixing may not be practical.
Acrylic painters modify the appearance, hardness, flexibility, texture, and other characteristics of the paint surface using acrylic mediums. Watercolor and oil painters also use various mediums, but the range of acrylic mediums is much greater. Acrylics have the ability to bond to many different surfaces, and mediums can be used to adjust their binding characteristics. They can also be used to build thick layers of paint: gel and molding paste mediums are sometimes used to create paintings with relief features that are literally sculptural.

Characteristics of Acrylic paint

The main difference between acrylics and oil paints is the inherent drying time. Oils allow for more time to blend colors and apply even glazes over underpaintings. This slow drying aspect of oil can be seen as an advantage for certain techniques, but in other regards it impedes the artist trying to work quickly. The fast evaporation of water from the acrylic paint film can be slowed with the use of acrylic retarders. Retarders are generally glycol or glycerin-based additives. In the case of acrylic paints, the addition of a retarder slows the evaporation rate of the water, and allows for more water to be added and the paint workable, until the retarder has left the film and the paint layer is dry.

Due to acrylic's more flexible nature and more consistent drying time between colors, the painter does not have to follow the "fat over lean" rule of oil painting, where more medium must be applied to each layer to avoid cracking. While canvas needs to be properly primed andgessoed before painting with oil, acrylic can be safely applied to raw canvas. The rapid drying of the paint tends to discourage the blending of color and use of wet-in-wet technique unique to oil painting. While acrylic retarders can slow drying time to several hours, it remains a relatively fast-drying medium, and the addition of too much acrylic retarder can prevent the paint from ever drying properly

Acrylic paints is the versatility offered by acrylic paints - acrylic is very useful in mixed media, allowing use of pastel (oil & chalk), charcoal, pen, etc on top of the dried acrylic painted surface. Mixing other bodies into the acrylic is possible - sand, rice, even pasta may be incorporated in the artwork. Mixing artist or student quality acrylic paint with household acrylic emulsions is possible, allowing the use of pre-mixed tints straight from the tube or tin, so presenting the painter with a vast color range at his disposal