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Untitled #8 *
1986
Woodcut
Signed and numbered
24 x 19 ½ inches (60.7 x 49.5 cm)
Edition of 27
SOLD
James Brown, born in Los Angeles, California in 1951, is an American-born painter now working in Paris and Oaxaca (Mexico). He was most well known in the 1980s for his rough painterly semi-figurative paintings, bearing affinities to Jean-Michel Basquiat and East Village painting of the time, but with influences from primitive art and classical Western modernism.
Brown received at BFA from Immaculate Heart College, Hollywood. He then spent years in Paris, and attended the Ecole Superieure des Beaux Arts, Paris, France. He rebelled against the classical training there, which he considered irrelevant, but stayed as he wanted to stay in Paris. Tours of Europe seeing renaissance and especially medieval painting of Italy influenced his work. During the 1980s his paintings, mixing the modernist tradition of painterly application and adherence to the picture surface with clear influences from tribal art. In the early 1980s he began exhibiting in New York, and in this decade this work became a hit in the galleries and art press, sharing a look with the Bad Painting and young neo-expressionism of the East Village painters of the time. Despite some time on the East and West coast of New York, he continued to live in Paris. In 1995 he moved to the valley of Oaxaca (Mexico) with his family, where they lived in a Hacienda for nine years. Since then James Brown has been spending much time in Europe, exhibiting his work in France, Germany, Italy and Holland. He has been working mostly in Paris.
Brown, James
1986 Woodcut Signed and numbered 24 x 19 ½ inches (60.7 x 49.5 cm) Edition of 27 SOLDBrown received at BFA from Immaculate Heart College, Hollywood. He then spent years in Paris, and attended the Ecole Superieure des Beaux Arts, Paris, France. He rebelled against the classical training there, which he considered irrelevant, but stayed as he wanted to stay in Paris. Tours of Europe seeing renaissance and especially medieval painting of Italy influenced his work. During the 1980s his paintings, mixing the modernist tradition of painterly application and adherence to the picture surface with clear influences from tribal art. In the early 1980s he began exhibiting in New York, and in this decade this work became a hit in the galleries and art press, sharing a look with the Bad Painting and young neo-expressionism of the East Village painters of the time. Despite some time on the East and West coast of New York, he continued to live in Paris. In 1995 he moved to the valley of Oaxaca (Mexico) with his family, where they lived in a Hacienda for nine years. Since then James Brown has been spending much time in Europe, exhibiting his work in France, Germany, Italy and Holland. He has been working mostly in Paris.