News
Scottish Landscape Awards 2023
I am pleased to announce that my work has been selected for the Scottish Landscape Awards 2023. Visit the exhibition from 4th November 2023 to 3 March 2024 at the City Art Centre, Edinburgh. More info here
Interview with Young Space curator Kate Mothes
I was recently interviewed by young-space.com, the online platform of Wisconsin-based curator Kate Mothes, where I spoke about my forthcoming solo show 'Terra Incognita' (amongst other things). Read the full interview here
Terra Incognita - Solo Exhibition
6th - 17th of July 2017 at Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh
Ross’ work channels the experience of urban space through the medium and history of painting. Visiting overlooked spaces found on the edges of the built landscape, Brown is interested in locations where the orderliness of the built environment is subverted; places where architecture and nature overlap and the regularity of the urban environment is challenged.
‘Terra Incognita’ (or ‘Unknown Territory’) was a term used by early cartographers to describe areas of land which remained undocumented. In our current age of Google maps, GPS navigation and satellite imagery, the notion of an unknown landscape has become an elusive entity. Within this body of work the artist has set out to find a form of contemporary ‘Terra Incognita’; uncovering a landscape so proximate and everyday it tends to become unnoticed and unknown through sheer familiarity. Approaching subject matter collected in Glasgow and Edinburgh; motorway overpasses, building sites and billboards become the focal point for painterly exploration.
Taking influence from psychogeography, his working process often begins whilst walking through a particular location within the city. Upon finding a site or feature of interest, Ross will take a number of photographs which will later be scrutinized, edited and reconsidered until a final subject is found for a painting. Filtering the urban landscape through a painter’s eye, the artist finds art historical allusions within the most unlikely sources; blank road signs as abstract monochromes, the sublime landscape of Caspar David Friedrich beneath a motorway flyover.
Within the studio, the artist approaches each image using a painting process that borrows as much from abstraction as it does from representation. Pitting a framework of rigidly constructed perspective drawing against a variety of chance-based painting processes, Brown creates images that explore the technicalities of pictorial construction. Layering poured, smeared and dripped paint alongside more measured responses to the photographic subject matter, Ross constructs images which are a palimpsest of controlled and chaotic marks; mirroring the timeworn and fragmentary nature of his subject matter. Brown’s work intends to depict the built landscape in a state of constant transition, as processes of construction and destruction interact over time, changing the urban fabric.
Ross M Brown (b. 1986) lives and works in Edinburgh. He graduated from the MFA course at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in 2010. His work has received prizes including the NS Macfarlane and Linda Clark Nolan awards from the Royal Scottish Academy (2010, 2008) and has been shortlisted for Saatchi New Sensations and the Griffin Art Prize (2010, 2012). Recent exhibitions include “Concrete Myths” (solo show) at Lacey Contemporary, London (2015), “Demimonde” (group show) curated by Slate Projects, London (2015), and “The Margins” (solo show) at EB&Flow Gallery, London in 2012. Ross’ work features within the University of Dundee art collection and is owned by private collectors across the UK.
Ross’ work channels the experience of urban space through the medium and history of painting. Visiting overlooked spaces found on the edges of the built landscape, Brown is interested in locations where the orderliness of the built environment is subverted; places where architecture and nature overlap and the regularity of the urban environment is challenged.
‘Terra Incognita’ (or ‘Unknown Territory’) was a term used by early cartographers to describe areas of land which remained undocumented. In our current age of Google maps, GPS navigation and satellite imagery, the notion of an unknown landscape has become an elusive entity. Within this body of work the artist has set out to find a form of contemporary ‘Terra Incognita’; uncovering a landscape so proximate and everyday it tends to become unnoticed and unknown through sheer familiarity. Approaching subject matter collected in Glasgow and Edinburgh; motorway overpasses, building sites and billboards become the focal point for painterly exploration.
Taking influence from psychogeography, his working process often begins whilst walking through a particular location within the city. Upon finding a site or feature of interest, Ross will take a number of photographs which will later be scrutinized, edited and reconsidered until a final subject is found for a painting. Filtering the urban landscape through a painter’s eye, the artist finds art historical allusions within the most unlikely sources; blank road signs as abstract monochromes, the sublime landscape of Caspar David Friedrich beneath a motorway flyover.
Within the studio, the artist approaches each image using a painting process that borrows as much from abstraction as it does from representation. Pitting a framework of rigidly constructed perspective drawing against a variety of chance-based painting processes, Brown creates images that explore the technicalities of pictorial construction. Layering poured, smeared and dripped paint alongside more measured responses to the photographic subject matter, Ross constructs images which are a palimpsest of controlled and chaotic marks; mirroring the timeworn and fragmentary nature of his subject matter. Brown’s work intends to depict the built landscape in a state of constant transition, as processes of construction and destruction interact over time, changing the urban fabric.
Ross M Brown (b. 1986) lives and works in Edinburgh. He graduated from the MFA course at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in 2010. His work has received prizes including the NS Macfarlane and Linda Clark Nolan awards from the Royal Scottish Academy (2010, 2008) and has been shortlisted for Saatchi New Sensations and the Griffin Art Prize (2010, 2012). Recent exhibitions include “Concrete Myths” (solo show) at Lacey Contemporary, London (2015), “Demimonde” (group show) curated by Slate Projects, London (2015), and “The Margins” (solo show) at EB&Flow Gallery, London in 2012. Ross’ work features within the University of Dundee art collection and is owned by private collectors across the UK.
Demimonde Exhibition
I'm exhibiting work at what looks to be a very interesting group exhibition held in a semi-derelict mansion across from the V&A in London, on from the 10th to the 18th of January 2015. From the Slate Projects website:
"Demimonde, organised with Matt Mottahedan, is a group exhibition of 31 young artists held in historic Amberwood House. Located opposite the Victoria & Albert Museum, and scheduled for renovation at the end of January, Amberwood House is a unique exhibition setting, with a number of rooms distributed over three floors. Demimonde invites an exploration of the house in its transitional state through a sequence of curated rooms and site-specific installations in a variety of media, from painting and sculpture to video and photography.
The French word for ‘half-world’, in the nineteenth century ‘demi-monde’ referred to a social milieu ambiguously located between high and low culture. Demimonde touches on the in-between status of Amberwood House itself, as well as the tensions and ambiguities between art and commerce, irony and sincerity, digital and analogue, past and future, process and concept, etc. which characterise much of contemporary creation."
List of artists:
Alex Ball, Peter Çan Bellamy, Lewis Betts, Skyler Brickley, Jack Brindley, Ross M Brown, Matthew Cheale, Joel Chima, James Collins, Ben Cove, Tom Farthing, Robin Friend, Aaron Gilbert, Daniel Gordon, Rae Hicks, Michael Iveson, Egle Jauncems, Nick Jensen, Lee Marshall, Rob McKenzie, Nadège Mériau, Ana Milenkovic, Adele Morse, Sean Mullan, Rosa Nussbaum, Christopher Page, Charley Peters, Miroslav Pomichal, Terry Ryu Kim, Tom Savery, Pablo Smidt
More info here
"Demimonde, organised with Matt Mottahedan, is a group exhibition of 31 young artists held in historic Amberwood House. Located opposite the Victoria & Albert Museum, and scheduled for renovation at the end of January, Amberwood House is a unique exhibition setting, with a number of rooms distributed over three floors. Demimonde invites an exploration of the house in its transitional state through a sequence of curated rooms and site-specific installations in a variety of media, from painting and sculpture to video and photography.
The French word for ‘half-world’, in the nineteenth century ‘demi-monde’ referred to a social milieu ambiguously located between high and low culture. Demimonde touches on the in-between status of Amberwood House itself, as well as the tensions and ambiguities between art and commerce, irony and sincerity, digital and analogue, past and future, process and concept, etc. which characterise much of contemporary creation."
List of artists:
Alex Ball, Peter Çan Bellamy, Lewis Betts, Skyler Brickley, Jack Brindley, Ross M Brown, Matthew Cheale, Joel Chima, James Collins, Ben Cove, Tom Farthing, Robin Friend, Aaron Gilbert, Daniel Gordon, Rae Hicks, Michael Iveson, Egle Jauncems, Nick Jensen, Lee Marshall, Rob McKenzie, Nadège Mériau, Ana Milenkovic, Adele Morse, Sean Mullan, Rosa Nussbaum, Christopher Page, Charley Peters, Miroslav Pomichal, Terry Ryu Kim, Tom Savery, Pablo Smidt
More info here
Art13 with EB&Flow Gallery
Really pleased to be showing new paintings with EB&Flow at the Art13 fair in London's Olympia from March 1st-3rd 2013. Currently working on a collaborative sculptural piece with artist Neil Ayling who will also be exhibitting individual works at the event. See more info on
Art 13 at http://artfairslondon.com/ and Neil Ayling's work here.
Art 13 at http://artfairslondon.com/ and Neil Ayling's work here.
Griffin Art Prize 2012
My work has been selected by judges Ian Davenport, Zavier Ellis, Deborah Orr and Jenny Lindén Urnes for the Griffin Art Prize, taking place at the Griffin Gallery, London, in November 2012. More info at www.griffingallery.co.uk
Catlin Guide 2011
My work is being featured in the Catlin Guide, a yearly publication which brings together the work of 40 new graduates from across the country. The book will be released at the London Art Fair in January of next year. More info www.artcatlin.com
Saatchi New Sensations 2010
I have been selected to exhibit at the Saatchi/Channel 4 New Sensations show in London alongside 20 other graduates from across the country.
The exhibition will be held at 2 Cornwall Terrace next to Regent's Park from the 14th to the 20th of October. New Sensations will be on display alongside the exhibition "The House of the Noble Man", curated by Wolfe von Lenkiewicz.
The exhibition will be held at 2 Cornwall Terrace next to Regent's Park from the 14th to the 20th of October. New Sensations will be on display alongside the exhibition "The House of the Noble Man", curated by Wolfe von Lenkiewicz.
Royal Scottish Academy - Annual Show
I have been invited by Ian McCulloch to show a new body of work at the RSA Annual Exhibition opening in May 2010. The exhibition brings together work under the theme ‘The Expressive Artist and Social Involvement’ and aims to present artists who have expressed their involvement with and critique of society directly through the making process of painting, sculpture, print-making and photography.
The invited artists: John Byrne, Joyce Cairns, Grant Clifford, Calum Colvin, Gareth Fisher, Ronald Forbes, Gordon Munro, Keith Rand, Kate Downie, Beth Fisher, Neil MacPherson, Arthur Watson, Alan Davie, Sean Ambrose, Ross Brown, John Goto, Lys Hansen, Margaret Hunter, Paola McClure, Ron O’Donnell, Douglas Thomson, John Taylor, James Tweedie, Calum MacKenzie and architects Gordon Benson, Graham Hutton, Graeme Massie and Cameron Webster architects.
The show runs from the 8th of May to the 23rd of June at the RSA in Edinburgh.
The invited artists: John Byrne, Joyce Cairns, Grant Clifford, Calum Colvin, Gareth Fisher, Ronald Forbes, Gordon Munro, Keith Rand, Kate Downie, Beth Fisher, Neil MacPherson, Arthur Watson, Alan Davie, Sean Ambrose, Ross Brown, John Goto, Lys Hansen, Margaret Hunter, Paola McClure, Ron O’Donnell, Douglas Thomson, John Taylor, James Tweedie, Calum MacKenzie and architects Gordon Benson, Graham Hutton, Graeme Massie and Cameron Webster architects.
The show runs from the 8th of May to the 23rd of June at the RSA in Edinburgh.
