PAUL BROWN PORTFOLIO: riseart.com/artist/paul-brown IG: @paulbrownart Available to purchase at riseart.com
Born in the North East of England but spending most of his formative school years in Yorkshire, Paul always had an interest in drawing and painting. After finishing his A-levels he went on to study Graphic Design at Liverpool Polytechnic, where he specialised in Film and Animation, and to Saint Martins in London to complete a postgraduate diploma in Illustration. Just as his career as an illustrator was beginning to take root, he became seriously ill for a number of years, leaving him with the lasting legacy of an acquired brain injury and putting an end to his ability to cope with the pressures involved in commercial work. In the years following recovery, he has found a way to free himself from the constraints of briefs and deadlines and produce the abstract work that he is comfortable with. THE START It wasn’t until after the brain injury put a stop to my illustration career that I concentrated on more abstract image making again. I’d always kept sketchbooks full of line and colour work, laden with paint and ink with still wet pages often stuck together. After finding I could create the work I was happy with through digital means, it’s been a case of trying to get the work visible to an appreciative audience. I’ve been fortunate to be taken on by Riseart and feel a bit awestruck at sharing gallery space with the likes of Bruce Mclean and Sir Peter Blake who I’ve admired for years. Using art as therapy post brain injury really gave me the boost in confidence I needed to start putting my work on show online and at art fairs and in public spaces through art loan schemes. It’s slowly raising my profile and finding people who love what I’m doing and choose to follow my work on social media.
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