Walter Brown

I am a physician (pathologist) turned artist, working with conventional and unconventional media. I am currently about to enter my second year in the MFA program in Fine Arts at the Studio School in Manhattan
Due to nature’s fractal organization, the microscopic world is a fitting take-off point for additional explorations. My current work, the “Origin” series, acknowledges my history as an anatomic pathologist and uses the microscopic world as a take-off point for additional explorations.

At its core, my artwork is an attempt to obtain security in an unsafe crowded world. I like to find beauty in unexpected places, which may lead to an appreciation of the seamier side of the human condition.

I am showing a series of work here on the Saatchi website, and also at the upcoming The Other Art Fair in Brooklyn, June 2022. The artworks are framed paint-filled plastic bags.

For me, putting paint into a plastic bag is a calming rite. The paint is completely inside the bag, leading to a sense of security, whether real or false. The plastic bag is the “canvas”. In some ways it resembles a conventional painting. It is easy to hang on a wall since it is framed and covered with UV-protective plexiglass.
The bags are vulnerable yet indestructible. They are cheap and easily obtained, but can be elevated in status when framed and displayed.. The contradictions inherent in the process and outcome of elevating them into artwork references our confused political and environmental situation.

Another body of work comprises the more conventional figurative and abstract paintings. The abstract ones explore the boundaries between objects and their environment. I also make abstract sculptures from my personal plastic waste.

WALTER BROWN

ARTIST STATEMENT 

My paintings recapitulate  and transform visual microscopic memories accumulated from more than four decades of biopsy interpretation as a pathologist physician. I  appropriate the ubiquitous circle  as a stand-in for the body’s cells and as an avatar which can freely morph as needed . 

I take advantage of nature’s fractal organization, allowing the microscopic world to become a take-off for additional explorations. As scale varies, the circle’s role changes, assuming various iterations  and configurations.

The artwork shows both self-assurance and speculative doubt as it exposes this miniature realm. It hovers at interfaces, including the artificially separated artistic and scientific viewpoints.    Far from being  textbook copies of what one might see, the paintings show a fictionalized  frequently loose transcription, with control and discipline  in dialogue with spontaneity and freedom.  

As my work expands and evolves, other considerations come into play.  I enjoy working with randomness and potential opportunity, as casual paint strokes serve as a nidus from which to form a painting.  The energy from this approach is strong, and allows me to access deeply hidden visual thoughts and emotions

MORE INFORMATION

In 2022 I retired from medical practice after forty-plus years and became a full-time artist. I applied and was accepted into the Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture, where I am currently working towards a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts (MFA).

My visual references are frequently derived from my prior medical career  as a pathologist, where I spent my days interpreting biopsies via microscopic diagnosis. In my art now, I frequently appropriate the  circle to stand in for the cell and other biologic structures.  Fictionalized versions of microscopic landscapes give way to unstructured energetic works. The striking aspects of miniature worlds could not be fully utilized as source material  while I was still working as a pathologist because of the seriousness of the work.  Now, as a full time artist, I claim the intricacies of the cellular plane, alongside the macroscopic world, as artistic fodder.