white like a feather; heavy as red

Start date: Friday, January 9, 2009
Event is ongoing: Until Saturday, February 21, 2009

Pleasure and the pursuit of it (desire) compel me to make artwork. I often begin with an idea about color. In white like a feather, heavy as red; I have chosen to work with a monochromatic palette in naphthol crimson because I wanted to explore the relationship between the imagery I use and a color that packs a lot of punch.

My work takes issue with the preference of modern art over decoration because the desire to embellish a surface is universal. This human drive has been documented through anthropological evidence and shown to have existed in every culture throughout every age. Privately; I experience a psychological connection to the work owing to the tactile experiences of drawing, painting, tapping pins into walls and stretching canvases.

Through my work, I probe the flexibility of meaning. I layer appropriated shapes into a cluster of ornaments that by recombination are taken out of an original context to be placed within a new conceptual framework. I hope to suggest new meanings through the subtle hints of a fractured narrative. --Nancy L. Brown