Artist Carol K. Brown is Something Else
At Nohra Haime Gallery in New York
By: Susan Hall - Nov 03, 2023
Carol K. Brown’s latest work Someplace Else consists of watercolor paintings and a series of drawings titled Modified Husband. This exhibition is a culmination of Brown’s desire for detail, layered with humorous subject matter.
Obsession seems to be the foundation of her artistic practice. Someplace Else explores memory and perception through intricate watercolor paintings. The environment of the watercolors invites the viewer to step into a dreamlike world. These paintings follow the path of a disappearing man traveling in a rich and beautiful but dubious space.
The artist is dealing with the fullness of life, while the ground becomes shakier. There is nostalgia for a lush world that never actually existed. The paintings are the perfect balance of simplistic line drawings layered with detailed imagery. The contrast between the effortlessness of hand-drawn subject matter and the detail highlights Brown’s brilliance with social commentary.
There is nothing subtle about Brown’s humor. Her lighthearted series of drawings titled "Modified Husband" confronts aspects of absurdity within the aging process.
Carol K. Brown is an American visual artist based in both Miami and New York City. Beginning her career as a sculptor, her work has evolved through numerous phases: anthropomorphic abstractions, figurative paintings, and social commentary. Brown first exhibited in 1992 at the Nohra Haime Gallery. She has also exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Boise Art Museum; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; the Contemporary Art Center of New Orleans, among others. Her work is in numerous public and private collections including the Perez Art Museum Miami; the Jacksonville Art Museum; the Denver Art Museum; the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; the Frost Art Museum at FIU; and Miami-Dade Art in Public Spaces.
Walking through the exhibit with the artist, she often refers to the setting of her paintings as “a wonderful world.” Viewers see Klimt, Miro and Henri Rousseau in the bold and beautiful images that comprise her forest.
A quote introducing the works is from Henry David Thoreau.
“ I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
I thought I heard a trumpet following me through the show. It may well have been Louis Armstrong singing “What a Wonderful World.” You could see:
“trees of green
Red roses too
I see them bloom
For me and you
And I think to myself
What a Wonderful World
Yes, I think to myself What a Wonderful world.
Oh yeah."
On exhibit through November 4th in at the Nohra Haime Gallery, 500 A West 21st Street. Contact: nohrahaimegallery.com