Notes on Painting

Reductive Geometric Abstraction

Henry Brown works with a reduced vocabulary of geometry and a limited color selection in his abstract paintings. Close inspection of Brown’s surfaces reveals a network of ruled lines and compass-drawn circles that form the underlying structure of his hard-edge images. His reductive aesthetic intensifies what is essential to his painting process, resulting in abstractions that are direct and conceptually driven.

Substructure

In Henry Brown’s abstractions, the geometric underdrawing generates the painted image. Together they form a comprehensive unit of meaning. The visible portions of the underdrawing are evidence of a prior state that the painting has partially preserved. The drawn geometry is the framework for what the painted image will become. The painting retains the state that preceded the image as an integral part of the completed work. The finished work is not autonomous from its creation. The painting exists as the accumulation of its unconcealed history.

Layering

His paintings and abstract imagery are constructed through physical layering. He maps out a geometric underdrawing directly on the gessoed canvas and then paints the images on the surface. Brown leaves portions of the white ground and underdrawing unpainted, integrating these into the final composition. This creates an additional level of information behind the images. In the finished work, a pictorial foreground of painted geometric imagery is set against the white gesso and underdrawing in the background. This figure-ground relationship establishes layering of space, through both the physical act and optical effect.

Spatial Paradox

Henry Brown’s abstractions are built on fixed geometry that refuses to stay fixed. His flat paintings suggest three-dimensional depth as surfaces advance and recede. The picture plane does not resolve into a stable form, forcing the eye to oscillate between competing spatial interpretations. Brown simultaneously constructs and destabilizes his own systems. He subverts illusionism with structural elements that flatten the surface, while his rigid geometric framework keeps the image in flux. Through this paradox, the work becomes a perceptual event.

Intermediary Processes

Henry Brown uses an intermediary process at each stage of the painting’s development. Brown works with geometric systems or symmetrical patterns to draw a schematic and outline for the image. The schematic refines his idea into the resulting image which is then painted. He draws with compass and ruler; the tools mediate the process by rendering the circles, arcs, and straight lines. Outlines formed by the schematic drawing determine the area that is painted in. Unmodulated color and hard edges define the aesthetic. Agency is distributed: choices made and the effects of intermediaries determine outcomes.

Drawing

His abstract paintings are derived from thumbnail sketches drawn to work out ideas and imagery. From the sketches he develops drawings to scale on paper tacked to the wall. In these, Henry Brown uses compass and ruler to create schematic underdrawings and image outlines for his paintings. Each canvas is laid flat on saw horses like a drafting table. The schematics and outlines are redrawn on the gessoed surface and sealed in. Brown paints his imagery and leaves the white ground and underdrawings exposed as visible components in the finished paintings.