Cecily Brown

Gagosian is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Cecily Brown.

Presenting a world that pulses with excesses and appetites, Brown explores the breadth of human experience in tactile oil paintings. Broadly inspired by the history of painting—from Rubens and Veronese to the muscular expressionism of Willem de Kooning—Brown’s personal vision transcends classical notions of genre and narrative, freeing subject matter from its original context and positioning it within a new aesthetic reality.

Submerged within vigorous gestural abstractions are scenes in which tangles of flesh dissolve into sensuous textures. In the dense scenario of The Green, Green Grass of Home (2010) flickering figures are enfolded in vivid landscapes of lilac, charcoal, and burnt orange. In The Haunter (2010) a yawning orifice opens up in a sea of deliquescent color that is smeared and wiped across the support. In Handsome Stranger (2010) and Wake, Awake for Night is Flying (2010) anatomical silhouettes—the ball of a foot, the crook of an elbow—can just be made out. Eschewing fixed meaning, Brown’s paintings reflect the flux of life through fragmentary glimpses of form.