It takes courage for an artist to leave a powerful, multi-national gallery like Gagosian, particularly after 15 years during which your star has risen from a talented 29-year-old unknown to an established name.
But, the British painter Cecily Brown has done just that, departing Gagosian in April last year to join the smaller but respected London gallery Thomas Dane last summer. On 10 June, the gallery opened their first show of Brown’s paintings and drawings, 'Cecily Brown: Madrepora'. Brown has lived and worked in New York since she moved there as a 26-year-old, a devoted painter escaping the conceptual focus of London’s YBA’s in the mid-1990s.
Although still happily settled in Manhattan, as she smiles proudly around the gallery as final touches are applied the day before the opening, it's hard not to see that this is a homecoming show.
Brown clearly revels in the sheer handling of paint and, through its many, reworked layers, has a restless virility. The body remains central and fleshy forms slowly reveal themselves out of the many layers. There’s a strong sense of narrative too, although the precise subject often remains elusive, more a memory of her original inspiration.
The show takes over both of the gallery’s spaces on Duke Street, each room mixing recent works with older paintings and drawings from the past two decades, kept by the artist. As gallery director François Chantala observes, although Brown’s work is 'constantly shifting,' the layers becoming 'more translucent and the palette more muted' in recent paintings. They’re united by a handful of recurrent themes such as the body, heaven and hell, and draw repeatedly on art historical references. Brown’s admiration of Rembrandt, of French 18th-century painters and Velázquez and Goya, to name a few, touches many.
It’s a rare treat to see Brown’s drawings hung alongside the paintings. These deft delicate ink sketches, often studies of Old Master paintings, are rarely shown and, far from playing second fiddle to the paintings, they’re one of the highlights of the show. Brown’s skill as a draughtsman is about to gain further recognition with a solo exhibition titled 'Rehearsal' opening this October at New York’s Drawing Center.
With the move to Thomas Dane, Brown has spoken of her wish to 'recontextualise' her work as she enters another stage of her career and the intimacy of the two spaces, the collaborative process of putting together the exhibition, does just that.
To this day, her preoccupation remains the Body—in all its various guises and narratives: as subject matter, as form, as boundary, but also as quintessence, as core structure and even as a total Corpus. Pictured: 'Madrepora', installation view at Thomas Dane Gallery, London, 2016. Courtesy the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery, London
Spanning both spaces of the gallery, the exhibition will also include works from the past, some of which were kept by the artist
INFORMATION
’Cecily Brown: Madrepora’ will be view until 23 July at Thomas Dane Gallery in London. For more information visit the Thomas Dane website
ADDRESS
Thomas Dane Gallery, 3 & 11 Duke Street St James's, London SW1Y 6BN
-
The great American museum boomNine of the world’s top ten most expensive, recently announced cultural projects are in the US. What is driving this investment, and is this statistic sustainable?
-
Here’s how Heathrow is reimagining airport chaos as ambient musicGrammy-nominated Jordan Rakei turns travel noise into a meditative soundtrack by sampling everything from baggage belts to jet engines
-
Wallpaper* checks into Gansevoort Meatpacking, an art-filled hotel that mirrors the district’s glow-upThis sharp, stylish New York hotel is a fixture in its neighbourhood, where boutiques, restaurants and clubs have long since taken over spaces once occupied by slaughterhouses
-
After decades capturing the world’s fashion-set, photographer Johnny Rozsa picks up a paint brushIn his first exhibition of paintings, the New York-based artist celebrates the vibrancy of Tangier while rediscovering a familiar creative outlet
-
Leila Bartell’s cloudscapes are breezily distorted, a response to an evermore digital world‘Memory Fields’ is the London-based artist’s solo exhibition at Tristan Hoare Gallery (until 25 July 2025)
-
Marlene Dumas’ charged, exposed and intimate figures gather in AthensThe artist’s work from 1992 until the present day goes on show at Athens’ Museum of Cycladic Art (until 2 November)
-
Get lost in Megan Rooney’s abstract, emotional paintingsThe artist finds worlds in yellow and blue at Thaddaeus Ropac London
-
Kaari Upson’s unsettling, grotesque and seductive world in DenmarkThe Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark is staging the first comprehensive survey of late artist Kaari Upson’s work
-
Inside the brilliant and short career of Paul Thek: 'The goal was to live a creative existence as a maker – and he lived in a saint-like fashion'Paul Thek's paintings are now viewable at Thomas Dane Gallery in London, in an exhibition curated by Kenny Schacter and Jonathan Anderson.
-
Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska’s new show at Kettle’s Yard will uncover the missing narratives in everyday life storiesThe artists and partners in life are collaborating on an immersive takeover of Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, in an exhibition that delves into a lost literary legacy
-
Cassi Namoda is rethinking stained-glass windows at Turner Contemporary in MargateThe artist drew from an eclectic range of references when considering the traditional medium for a Turner Contemporary window overlooking the beach – she tells us more
