“I think my paintings reflect a longing to live. I see them as an expression of who I am.”Deborah Brown (b. 1955) is a New York-based painter. She holds a BA summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Yale University and an MFA from Indiana University.
When the Covid-19 pandemic started in spring 2020, Deborah Brown was already in the midst of a new challenge: self-portraits. Brown began her self-portraiture journey painting herself how she had painted others in the past – often with pets, nudity and bodies of water. As her practice evolved, the physical self has vanished completely. For Brown, still life is less about the object itself, but rather a form of psychoanalysis – capturing the tangible things that represent her soul.
Absence has become the central theme in Brown’s painting. As the world opened up again post-lockdown, she ventured out on walks with her dog – documenting the streets of her Brooklyn neighbourhood. The resulting paintings that make up both the Shadow Paintings (2021-2023) and the Haunted House series (2022). Though rendered in vivid colour, the paintings have a post-apocalyptic feel, exploring a world devoid of human life but filled with the remnants of our existence. Who we are is also what we leave behind.Brown has exhibited widely in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Hong Kong, Dubai, and Denver, among others. Her work is included in museum and private collections around the world, including the ICA, Miami, and the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, by donation from the Alex Katz Foundation.
