Acclaimed Melbourne-based artist Gavin Brown has been exhibiting with fortyfivedownstairs since 2005. His background encompasses art, design, fashion and film; all of equal influence on his eclectic art practice. Brown’s work is ever-evolving, often with an underlying focus on the excesses of popular culture and media, demonstrating a vibrancy of colour and collage.
Brown’s exhibition The Printed Painting revisits the process of printmaking that was a hallmark of his early textile designs of the 1980s. Seeing several of these textile designs in the National Gallery of Victoria’s 2013 exhibition Mixed Tape provided inspiration for his current body of work.
Brown has worked in linocut printing in the past and has amassed a catalogue of images and designs which he has drawn upon in this exhibition, resulting in the creation of collaged works reassembled on the canvas.
The Printed Painting is an exploration of changing technological printing methods. Brown’s utilisation of a ‘low-tech’ method is reimagined in the spirit of current digital printing aesthetics. The resulting images are manipulated, split and reflected back upon themselves in Brown’s idiosyncratic style.
With over 25 solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, Gavin Brown’s work is held in collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), The Powerhouse (Sydney), and the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne).
Brown has recently been featured in a number of national and international publications including The Cool Hunter, The Design Files, UK’s Idol Magazine and Romanian magazine LUXERY.
The Printed Painting
fortyfivedownstairs, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Exhibition continues to 20 June 2015
Free entry
For more information, visit: www.gavinbrown.com.au or www.fortyfivedownstairs.com for details
Image: Gavin Brown, Wings of Desire, 2015. ink & oil on canvas, 1220 x 1530mm