Cecily Brown

In the vein of Willem De Kooning, Cecily Brown’s paintings spurt forth with liquid like surfaces of copulating figures hidden behind the turbulent orgasmic finale.  There seems to be a time line in each painting which is decipherable based on the relative coherence of the underlying subject.  We can perceive many of Brown’s paintings as a final act immortalized.

De Kooning’s “Excavation” or “Clam Diggers” seems to indeed be the catalyst for Brown’s foundational structure.  It deals with the immediate relationship with the viewer and the artwork.  Instead of thinking in terms of pictorial navigation within the confines of the picture plane, both artists consider the actual physical space surrounding the work of art.  It is a variation on the existential painting question, “what is painting?”.  Brown chooses to align herself with concrete concepts of painting, the basic human responsiveness to an artwork.  De Kooning equated it to the equivalence of being flashed by a girl in a coat.  If we are to look at a painting shouldn’t it demand our attention, pique our curiosities?  Paintings are unable to exist independent of a viewer, so if they fail to attract one then they are a failure in their root purpose.  It is under these principles that Brown creates images of such an alluring nature that plays on the human aspect.

If you consider the paintings in terms of the aforementioned criteria some of the taboo aspects seem to dissolve.  The graphic nature is not without purpose, and is indeed descriptive of the “viewer” by the variability of the individual interpretations of the paintings.  Even on a societal level, Brown’s paintings are considered fashionable which can be considered a reflection on the times in which her work is being produced.  She seems to understand that the ellusive subject in painting is self endulgent in and of itself, so Brown takes her work directly to the foundation.  The resultant work is very human despite literally having human subjects, it is possibly in spite of this that the work becomes broad and encompasses the actual audience.