Phoenix S Brown
Challenging portraiture and preconceived
notions of the Black female body is at
the core of my painting practice. With
contemporary material and aesthetic
choices, I subvert the one-way
window of fantasy that western
painting has long offered.
Throughout art history, nature and
Blackness have existed as reserves to
exploit; in my work,they commingle and
force us to confront our viewing access
to them. My work grapples with the
disconnect between reality and
euro-centric narratives of Blackness,
womanhood, and the natural world.
There is a feedback loop between my
analog painting and digital editing visible
in the final image. My interdisciplinary
paintings are layered with impossible
brush strokes from their time in digital
drawing software and maintain a
textured surface that speaks to the
western art canon. I use technology,
printmaking, and collaged surfaces to
build contemporary reimaginations of
utopias and resistances where Black
womanhood is free from stereotypes
and the white male gaze.