COLIN BROWN love letter to Europe
COVER IMAGE Prague mixed media | 40cm x 40cm
+44 (0) 1463 783 230 art@kilmorackgallery.co.uk Kilmorack Gallery, inverness-shire iv4 7al SCOTLAND
COLIN BROWN love letter to Europe
16th March - 20th April 2019
LOVE LETTER to EUROPE As a young boy growing up in the Scottish Highlands, one year for my birthday I was given a large radio. The dial fascinated me with its seemingly random list of European place names. I remember Lyon, Praha, Hilversum, Bremen, Goteborg, Rotterdam and Berlin but there were of course many others. This radio became my constant companion and I scrolled endlessly through the long and short wave bands, picking up fragments of European language and music. Occasionally, and with great delight, I stumbled across a football match! My radio enabled me to realise for the first time that although I was Scottish, I was also part of a bigger picture. Here began a lifelong affinity with the continent of Europe, strengthened later by regular visits to its many cities. I even lived among my fellow Europeans for a time, in Italy and Germany. Coming forward to the present day, and in light of all the current negative atmosphere, I feel very strongly the need to register my deep personal love for Europe in its many forms - and to celebrate its diverse cultures, languages and traditions. So the idea was formed to create a series of fifteen paintings paying homage to specific cities I have spent time in. This project has now come together into a fully realised exhibition with Kilmorack Gallery. This is my Love Letter to Europe. Some of these places I know well, others less so. Each city in its own way represents a part of the Europe I love. While there’s a common geographical and cultural thread, each retains its own individual history and identity. My stance throughout has been one of inclusion, not exclusion. We are all different yet the same. I am forever a proud Scottish European. Colin Brown, February 2019
Lisbon mixed media 80cm x 80cm
Florence mixed media 80cm x 80cm
Gothenburg mixed media 40cm x 40cm
Nice mixed media 40cm x 40cm
Amsterdam mixed media 40cm x 40cm
London mixed media 40cm x 40cm
Glasgow mixed media 40cm x 40cm
Siena mixed media 40cm x 40cm
Munich mixed media 40cm x 40cm
Barcelona mixed media 40cm x 40cm
Paris mixed media 40cm x 40cm
Copenhagen mixed media 40cm x 40cm
Brussels
mixed media 40cm x 40cm
Berlin mixed media 80cm x 80cm
IN PRAISE OF COLIN BROWN A cry for togetherness can come from the most unexpected and at the same time most obvious places. With over thirty years of practice, Colin Brown has become Scotland’s most prominent collage artist. His work is created from a small wood-lined studio in Stonehaven. This paint-splattered, paper-filled place is an adjunct to an antique carpet shop that gathers beautiful things from faraway places to this cold corner of Europe. This is not the first internationalism Stonehaven has known. Edward I (1296,) William Wallace (1297,) Oliver Cromwell (1650) and the Jacobites (1715/45) all used its east-facing harbour. Far earlier than this, a small millipede crawled around Cowie beach. It died and became fossilized, only to be discovered 428 million years later (in 2004) with the distinction of becoming the first known animal to live on land. I mention these interesting facts because they remind me of Colin Brown’s work. Like an east-facing harbour, Brown scours the horizon for inspiration and cultural insights. He looks from land, over the sea towards Europe. Like a spider in the middle of a conduit web, Brown gathers information from afar, listening to its hums and vibrations, scraping off a peeling poster and cocooning it, a discovered thing, for later. Back in Stonehaven, Brown reorders and manipulates these gathered images. This is a process of minute control; the content and composition are always perfect, and the freedom to make personal and energetic marks. Brown also goes as far back in time as his gathered material allows – layering time with geography, revealing our shared heritage. This is what makes his work so perfect for 2019, a year when borders are due to shift and this is why we dreamed up ‘love letter to Europe’ from a bar on Stonehaven harbour. Tony Davidson, Director of Kilmorack Gallery +44 (0) 1463 783 230 art@kilmorackgallery.co.uk by beauly, inverness-shire iv4 7al