Angela Brown explores the physical and cultural landscape of Athens, and her relationship between the monumental and the human, while focusing on female form and identity as an integral part of the cityscape. This series spans a wide range of styles and themes which are borrowed from illustration as well as painting, to include figuration, the landscape, surrealism, and brute genres. This is Angela’s way of using different mediums and forms to explore the city’s myriad, polymorphic facets and its “subjects” in both an experimental, and highly focused manner. 

 

Angela examines her relationship with the city and with life itself, after a life-threatening illness in order both process and recount what has been nothing short of a miraculous recovery. It was essential however, for her to experience and study the reality of nature, life, and her own identity in a focused and concerted way through this combination of survey and experimentation in Athens.

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Several paintings such as Fair Isle, Scotland : Near South Light, reference idealised memories of her pastoral life in the highlands of  Scotland, while others like Fairground Attraction and She Wasn’t Where I Left Her, reference the difficulties that Angela faced before moving to Edinburgh several years ago. In the case of Exarchia, where freedom [of expression] is both so treasured and threatened, there is also a hint of humour and irony where all things identifiably brutal, free, and angelic coincide. 

 

For Angela and her angels, Exarchia is a place filled with possibilities for renewal and this begs the question: why shouldn’t we as Athenians assume that we are innately innocent and free, no matter where we find ourselves?

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“This experience has allowed me to go bigger, bolder and explore a more personal and playful take on the landscape tradition.”

 

What is your soul?

Shutters and concrete, filtered light

Tenement eyes

A sanctuary?

 

-Angela Brown

From notes and meditations on painting in Athens

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