Cecily Brown: Themes and Variations

Surveying three decades of the British painter Cecily Browns career, with its vibrant mixture of gestural expression, canonical and pop references, and subversive themes
 
This stunning volume surveys the pioneering career of Cecily Brown (b. 1969), one of the most celebrated artists working in painting today. In particular, it explores her process through paintings and drawings that demonstrate both her radical contemporaneity and her keen reassessment of historical precedents such as old master paintings and abstract expressionism, which have been consistent hallmarks of her art. The books probing essays look at her practice, investigate the main themes that recur in Browns work, and consider her art from a feminist perspective. Brown reclaimed the heroic gestural expression often affiliated with the male artists of the abstract expressionist generationlargely out of favor with her peersand in this mode she creates lush, dynamic paintings that often contain erotic content appropriated from art historical or pop culture sources. Moving between figuration and abstraction, Brown subverts gendered tropes in work that often deals with the power imbalances inherent in voyeurism and sexual violence.
 
Distributed for the Barnes Foundation
 
Exhibition Schedule:
 
Dallas Museum of Art
(September 29, 2024February 9, 2025)
 
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia
(March 9May 25, 2025) See more