About the Artist
Paintings
Alliance 2008
Henry Brown’s paintings are mechanically drawn geometric abstractions. He forms his imagery from structural schematics constructed with compass and ruler. The schematics are developed from small sketches and then executed directly on the gessoed canvases. Henry Brown paints the images, but leaves the underdrawings visible to show the substructure, planning and execution of his artwork.
The artist uses mechanical drafting techniques and paints with flat unmodulated color. Yet Henry Brown retains a handmade quality in his artwork, seen in the knifed finish of the gessoed layers, variations in pencil lines and eccentricities of the painted edges.
His imagery appears to be fixed spatially, but visual perception triggers sensations of movement. Depth shifts as surfaces advance and recede. Henry Brown animates the surfaces of his abstract paintings with systems of perspective and changing figure-ground relationships.
Exhibitions
MINUS SPACE
October 19, 2008 – January 26, 2009
P.S.1 Fall Opening Celebration
Sunday, October 19, 2008
12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center / MoMA
22–25 Jackson Ave (at the intersection of 46th Ave)
Long Island City, NY 11101
Thurs – Mon, noon to 6 p.m.
718–784–2084
ps1.org; minusspace.com
Curated by Phong Bui
Henry Brown is exhibiting in MINUS SPACE at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. MINUS SPACE is a nonprofit curatorial project based in Brooklyn, NY, presenting innovative reductive and concept based art by international artists working in all media. Phong Bui and MINUS SPACE have brought together 54 artists from 14 countries, ranging from Australia to Brazil to New York City, for a dense and playful show of reductive art in the Café and P.S.1’s mysterious Boiler Room, two of the museum’s unique and most intriguing exhibition spaces.
Concentrating on reductive art and abstraction, MINUS SPACE bucks the trend towards figuration that took hold in the 1990s. MINUS SPACE presents exhibitions in its Brooklyn project space and other venues nationally and internationally. Henry Brown’s paintings were recently included in their traveling group exhibition, Machine Learning. MINUS SPACE was founded in 2003 by artists Matthew Deleget and Rossana Martinez and this exhibition marks its 5th anniversary.
Artists include Soledad Arias, Shinsuke Aso, Marcus Bering, Hartmut Böhm, Richard Bottwin, Sharon Brant, Michael Brennan, Henry Brown, Vicente Butron, Bibi Calderaro, Melanie Crader, Mark Dagley, Julian Dashper, Christopher Dean, Matthew Deleget, Lynne Eastaway, Gabriele Evertz, Daniel Feingold, Kevin Finklea, Linda Francis, Zipora Fried, Daniel Göttin, Julio Grinblatt, Billy Gruner, Terry Haggerty, Lynne Harlow, Gilbert Hsiao, Andrew Huston, Simon Ingram, Inverted Topology, Kyle Jenkins, Mick Johnson, Steve Karlik, Sarah Keighery, Andrew Leslie, Daniel Levine, Sylvan Lionni, Lotte Lyon, Gerhard Mantz, Rossana Martinez, Juan Matos Capote, Douglas Melini, Manfred Mohr, Salvatore Panatteri, Dirk Rathke, Karen Schifano, Analia Segal, Edward Shalala, Tilman, Li-Trincere, Jan van der Ploeg, Don Voisine, Douglas Witmer and Michael Zahn
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center is an affiliate of the Museum of Modern Art, and one of the oldest and largest nonprofit contemporary art institutions in the United States. The P.S.1 Fall Opening Celebration highlights a talented group of international and national artists selected by P.S.1 Curatorial Advistors. This exhibition is part of P.S.1’s Fall 2008 cycle of the International and National Projects program.
Recent Exhibitions and Press
News About Henry Brown: American Abstract Artists at The Painting Center, Machine Learning traveling exhibition and catalog, reviews in The New York Sun and ArtsHouston magazine, and an interview for Houston Public Radio KUHF