15 May Bob Nickas on Alex Brown
One of the most insightful critics on Alex Brown’s paintings is the curator and writer Bob Nickas. In his book Painting Abstraction: New Elements In Abstract Painting, Nickas discusses Alex’s work at length, and publisher Phaidon has a great short piece recapping one of Nickas’ commentaries, on the painting shown above:
“Supermix (2004) is ostensibly a portrait of the reggae star Yellowman. However, although his outline is clear as he throws a shape for the camera, his face is blurred by what looks like pixellated disruption, the colouring of his shirt is a blue landscape, while his overall image exists somewhere between foreground and background, part of neither and both. In the way it plays with real and imaginary, physical and mental space, it offers far more food for thought than a photo could. It both extols the virtues of abstract art and gives the lie to the idea that the camera has made painting obsolete. It takes more time to make some pictures than it does to click a button.”