Lindsey Brown’s new work on paper began on Martha’s Vineyard with an
embossed monoprint process, flowers and leaves run through a press.
Overlaid fragments are repeated and re-represented; drawn, traced, sewn
or beaded. An array of specimens particular to place finds it’s way
into and onto the surface; skate egg cases, shells, ferns, flowers,
twigs, leaves, bits of drift wood. Incorporated are drawings of hermit
crabs, rabbits, caterpillars, butterfly cocoons, ships, and crab claws.
What results has less to do with accumulation than with documentation;
assembling diaristic artifacts from a journey, mapping, tracking and
archiving. In her own words; she layers imagery with text, poured paint
gold leaf and collaged elements to create map-like dreamscapes.
A single large canvas Yaddo in January reads as both a scrapbook
of remembered dreams; Memento mori and an aerial view of a familiar
place, whose remains are imbedded in pools of resin- a map of uncharted
territory, unknown lands. Terra incognita.
The first impression is of randomness- teetering at the edge of chaos-
in the way one approaches a vast expanse of landscape and chooses a
segment to focus on. Structure emerges slowly- between myriad and
seemingly haphazard forms, interchangeable correspondences in the
teeming profusion of nature.
Layers of veiled color, float in skies or underwater. The collective
slough of dreams is imbedded with an organic accumulation of
stuff. The links are intuitive - this belongs here, this
spot needs another element- a bird -a cloud- a word. A map or a branch,
copper and muslin, a tree obscured by a blue white wash, a butterfly
behind a scrim of gauze. Whatever needs to be added is included, as
all-inclusive as nature. Magnifying the small observation- the
microcosm of a single pressed blossom to the cosmological – a vast
green hemisphere.
Lindsey Brown most recently exhibited at the Danforth Museum in
Framingham, Massachusetts and is featured in the upcoming exhibit
Approx L, curated by Bethany Ides at Worksound in Portland, Oregon.
