Christopher Brown
Carnival, linocut, collage
Harlequins, Matelots & Others
1978 – 2023
23 November – 17 December 2023
Private views:
Thursday November 23rd 6.30 – 8.30 pm
Tuesday December 5th 6.30 – 8.30 pm
Sunday December 17th 12.00 – 3.00pm
Open Days:
Wednesday November 29th, December 6th and 13th. 12.00 – 6.00 pm
Viewing by appointment at other times
For further information contact Jonathan Ross:
Phone 07747 807576
or
jross@gallery286.com
There is also a selection of “off cut” prints, which I have been working on this year – setting myself the task of trying to cut 365 blocks. I’ve fallen rather behind in this but there are more than enough to chose from.
In 1974 I went to see a production of Lindsay Kemp’s “Flowers” at the Bush Theatre. This was my introduction to the work of Jean Genet and about this time I first saw Carné’s classic 1945 film “Les Enfants du Paradis”, probably at the Paris Pullman Cinema. By the time I started at the RCA in 1977, I had also started to read all I could by and on Jean Cocteau, as well as watching all his films. These influences led me to create some of the prints in the show – the two matelots “ Où voulez vous en venir?”, with the Bleu, Blanc, Rouge of the tricoleur overprinted on them. The harlequin hands clasped with a veiled figure in the background and, the earliest work
in the show, a pen and drink drawing for an RCA Inklings publication on travel, of the two sailors illustrating YMCA’s “In the Navy”.
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In the years after leaving the RCA, I was lucky enough to be able to incorporate harlequins into my commercial work; the brightly coloured version for Wilson Harris’s “Carnival”, published by Faber, and the juggling harlequins for one of Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius novels. (I’m unsure if it was ever used – I certainly never received a proof!).
I suppose that I’m now known more for my linocuts than the coloured pencil drawings, collages or paintings, so I have included some examples of the latter in this exhibition.
Whether, making work for myself of for a client, I have to relate to or create a narrative. My work is far from realistic but, in my mind, I imagine a real world – a real situation, a real person. I would like to think this is evident in the “off cut” prints that I am currently working on.
The work I make is often not that serious, but I am serious about the work I make.
Chris Brown. Earls Court, November 2023.
Boys and birds
Dancing by the sea
Hare and Hippo
Harlequin
Hello Gerry
Ou voulez vous en venir?
Mary Magdalene
Bottom
At the bar 10.5×7.5 £70
Boy and Flower 7.5 x 5.25 £70
Lady and Fox 7.5 x 5.25 £50
Mermaid 7.5 x 5.25 £50
Moth Man 7.5 x 5.25 £70
Icarus 7.5 x 5.25 £70
Long Walk 7.5 x 5.25 £60
Siren 10.5×7.5 £80
St Sebastian 10.5×7.5 £80
Woman and Scorpion 7.5 x 5.25 £50
Night Garden 7.5 x 5.25 £50
Bowler 7.5×5.25 £60
Chanteuse 10.5×7.5 £80
Cocteau 10.5×7.5 £80
Cook and rabbit 7.5×5.25 £50
Egyptian 7.5×5.25 £50
Man of sorrows 7.5 x 5.25 £60
Matelot 10.5×7.5 £70
Naked gardener 7.5×5.25 £50
Pierrot 10.5×7.5 £70
Soul Singer 7.5×5.25 £60
Woman with flower 7.5×5.25 £60
