b. brown’s studio practice has always been one that explores the charged tension between paired opposites: discipline and rule-breaking, methodology and abandon, refinement and elaboration. Her formal explorations are a constant cycle of searching, questioning, and learning, spurred on by a fascination with the limits and possibilities of the medium of clay.  

This exhibition expands on brown’s larger thematic explorations of the concepts of constriction, contortion, and destabilization. In creating this body of work, the artist says that she set out to loosen up, get more gestural, and be open to more spontaneity in her process — yet she notes that, ironically, “the resultant pieces are, perhaps, the most constructed works I’ve ever produced; requiring cognition and planning within the confines of the exploration that didn’t allow for much deviation once begun.”

This series of handbuilt pieces was created with low-temperature, white sculpture bodies, and represent a departure from brown’s typical practice in their hyper-constructed and less organic presentation. And though the works were built simultaneously, they evolved into two distinct patterns.

The first, which brown calls A THEME, was precipitated by the artist’s curiosity about the formal potential in taking a basic cylinder shape and “pushing in” the sides to see how narrow the piece could become and still maintain upright stability, a process that ultimately required much trial and error in arriving at a foot design that supported stability without disturbing the lines she hoped to create. “The resultant pieces further poke at the vessel vs. sculpture quandary that my work has been grappling with for some time, while also echoing back to ancient stone stelae - images of which loomed in the background of inspiration,” the artist says.

Though the pieces featured in this show stemmed from a material and technique-driven curiosity, during the process of creation, they took on a life of their own. brown’s works often develop in dialogue with one another, and this show is no exception. “An awareness emerged halfway through their production of a subconscious conversation undergirding the juxtaposition of the A-B thematics - that of loss and grief,” brown explains. “I very much see the pieces as partnered, and find it interesting that they asked to be born at the same time rather than showing up as separate shows.”