Although the landscapes in Ray Brown’s paintings are immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with Vermont, they are jumping-off point for the kind of painterly concerns more commonly associated with abstract are. His art inhabits a middle ground, between pure abstraction and narrative realism.
“I would describe it as figurative - there is a clearly identifiable image. But it’s not a
picture in the story-telling sense.”
“A particular barn doesn’t interest me because of its nostalgic qualities - more how it sits
in the landscape, how it sits in space. So I’m inspired by the landscape, but I consider
myself an abstractionist.”
Brown was trained at the Massachusetts College of Art, the Haystack Mountain School, Boston University, MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and the Cranbrook Institute. He has exhibited throughout the country, including the National Gallery, the Addison Gallery, the San Antonio Museum, and locally at the Helen Da y Art Center in Stowe, and Didben Gallery in Johnson, Among other sites. He lives and paints in East Montpelier with his wife Jody Wilson Brown.
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