Glenn Brown

Constantly challenging perception and the meaning of art, Glenn Brown CBE is known for the use of appropriation in his works. Born in 1966 in Hexham, Northumberland, Brown studied at the Norwich School of Art and then at the Bath School of Art and Design, before completing his Master’s degree at Goldsmiths, University of London, in 1992.

For three decades, Brown has devoted himself to destabilising received ideas about authenticity and depth in art. He assesses the history of painting from a postmodern perspective, appropriating and restaging images that have been mediated through reproduction, and questioning longstanding faiths in the medium’s inherent expressive power.

His early practice centred around disquieting simulations of Modernist mark-making—such as the gestural, impastoed brushwork of Frank Auerbach and Karel Appel—in paintings that evoke an alien, uncanny flatness. This illusion of an almost photographically flat surface is achieved through the applicable of thin, swirling brushstrokes.

After talking to his tutor Michael Craig-Martin about how to take his work further, Brown resolved to start making photorealist versions of already-photorealist paintings. He began with the Surrealist works of Salvador Dalí, which eventually led him to the realms of 1970s and 1980s sci-fi art. ‘Salvador Dalí was depicting his dreams — the work is meant to be reality, but a reality we can’t see,’ Brown explained. ‘Science fiction images are like Surrealism in that way, they’re a dreamed reality but rendered in a way that’s meant to be realist. It was a more interesting take on the conceptual copy.’ A example from this series of science-fiction paintings is his expansive work, Jesus; The Living Dead (after ‘Jupiter Cloudscape’ 1982 by Adolf Schaller) (1997–98), which sold for £2,202,000 at Christie’s London in 2022.

In addition to his paintings, Brown has worked on a range of sculptures and drawings that echo his painterly techniques. His sculptures often involve the manipulation of traditional forms, creating fantastical figures that seem to defy gravity and convention. His drawings, meanwhile, reveal his mastery of line and detail, often serving as preparatory studies for his larger works.

Brown is often associated with the Young British Artists and was included in the 1997 exhibition Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection at Royal Academy of Arts. Brown’s works have been exhibited in prestigious institutions worldwide, including the Tate Gallery in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.