Coady Brown
Baltimore, MD
June 2 - July 30, 2019
Artist Statment
Groups, couples, and solitary figures examine self-presentation in both private and public life. The scenes are nocturnal: fractured and reimagined by neon light. Figures become reflections of their environments, mirroring these heightened, surreal, frenetic, sexy, and sorrowful states. The figures in my work are based on my intimate friendships and relationships, however, they are not portraits. Instead, bodies are more dream-like, mutable, and distorted, allowing me to examine the figure more fluidly.
The boundaries between intimacy and control are pushed as figures fall into moments of seduction, dependence, or hesitation. Bodies act as unwitting barometers, shaped by the company they keep. In their contrasting flatness and opticality, forms resist a rigidity of perception and consumption. There is no nudity: bodies are specifically dressed. Proportions are exaggerated, and patterns are hand-painted in contrasting, high-chroma colors. Fashion acts as a fissure; a split that can expose and explore the illogical, confused, animated, gendered, and divided self.
Bio
Coady Brown (b. 1990, Baltimore, MD) received her BFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in 2012, and her MFA from Yale University in 2016. Brown was a 2018-2019 Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, and in 2017, completed a residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. Brown had her first solo exhibition at 1969 Gallery (Super Natural) in 2019, and has also shown work in various group exhibitions at Koenig & Clinton, Mulherin Gallery, Abrons Art Center, and Tomorrow Gallery, all in New York, NY, as well as NAM Projects in Milan, Italy, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum in Provincetown, MA, among others. Her work has been written about in The New York Times, The Village Voice, and New American Painting.
Artist Links
Website: www.coadybrown.com
Gallery: www.1969gallery.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coadybrown/