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Lot Essay
'When I first started painting, it seemed very natural to me to want to be in a conversation with old masters... I feel inseparable from the history of European painting; I definitely feel steeped in it'
(C. Brown, quoted in Cecily Brown, New York 2008, p. 25).
'I take all my cues from the paint, so it's this total back-and-forth between my will and the painting directing what to do next. The painting has a completely different idea than I do about what it should be... Things just naturally break down and become more abstract. When things get too abstract, I definitely feel like I want to bring the figure back. There is a line that I'm always striving for that's not half-way between figuration and abstraction, it is both... It's almost like pulling a moment of clarity in the middle of all the chaos'
(C. Brown speaking in 'New York Minute: Cecily Brown,' Another, 14 September 2012, www.anothermag.com/current/view/2192/Cecily_Brown, access date 15-Mar-2013).
Painted in 2003, L.C.V. is Cecily Brown's lively, lavishly painted interpretation of pastoral subjects presented by the Rococo masters Jean-Antoine Watteau and François Boucher and the Impressionist paintings of Claude Monet. Brown employs her distinctly gestural, painterly style to address classical art historical themes in compositions that waver between the figurative and abstract. In an autumnal palette of warm oranges, cool blues and fleshy creams, Brown has conjured a shimmering abstracted landscape scene that is intentionally ambiguous, revealing sudden moments of clarity as the eye moves across its luscious surface. Portrayed here in fleshy pinks tones, it assumes phallic significance, revealing the undercurrents of carnal desire and sexual activity that flow through much of Brown's work.
Oscillating between abstraction and recognisable form, Cecily Brown's work forces the viewer to become active in looking, and be creative in discerning for themselves the imagery, which is only ever implied. She is keen to retain this mystery, a quality that is unique to painting. As she has said, 'I think that painting is a kind of alchemy the paint is transformed into image, and hopefully paint and image transform together into a third and new thing I want to catch something in the act of becoming something else, not in the sense of it becoming a leg or a tree or whatever, but something hard to name. Maybe that is why I am so inclined to stop short of letting things become a complete leg or tree, why I don't want things completely described' (C. Brown, quoted in Cecily Brown: Paintings, exh. cat., Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, 2005, p. 55).
Brown's profound engagement and understanding of the physical properties of her medium has led her into dialogue with the history of painting. L.C.V combines not only the illusionary techniques of Rococo flourishes with Impressionist painters with Modern abstraction, but also the expressive spontaneity of Abstract Expressionist painting with an understanding of composition and a lightness of touch learned from admiration of the Old Masters. 'When I first started painting, it seemed very natural to me to want to be in a conversation with old masters', Brown has said. 'I feel inseparable from the history of European painting; I definitely feel steeped in it' (C. Brown, quoted in Cecily Brown, New York 2008, p. 25).
(C. Brown, quoted in Cecily Brown, New York 2008, p. 25).
'I take all my cues from the paint, so it's this total back-and-forth between my will and the painting directing what to do next. The painting has a completely different idea than I do about what it should be... Things just naturally break down and become more abstract. When things get too abstract, I definitely feel like I want to bring the figure back. There is a line that I'm always striving for that's not half-way between figuration and abstraction, it is both... It's almost like pulling a moment of clarity in the middle of all the chaos'
(C. Brown speaking in 'New York Minute: Cecily Brown,' Another, 14 September 2012, www.anothermag.com/current/view/2192/Cecily_Brown, access date 15-Mar-2013).
Painted in 2003, L.C.V. is Cecily Brown's lively, lavishly painted interpretation of pastoral subjects presented by the Rococo masters Jean-Antoine Watteau and François Boucher and the Impressionist paintings of Claude Monet. Brown employs her distinctly gestural, painterly style to address classical art historical themes in compositions that waver between the figurative and abstract. In an autumnal palette of warm oranges, cool blues and fleshy creams, Brown has conjured a shimmering abstracted landscape scene that is intentionally ambiguous, revealing sudden moments of clarity as the eye moves across its luscious surface. Portrayed here in fleshy pinks tones, it assumes phallic significance, revealing the undercurrents of carnal desire and sexual activity that flow through much of Brown's work.
Oscillating between abstraction and recognisable form, Cecily Brown's work forces the viewer to become active in looking, and be creative in discerning for themselves the imagery, which is only ever implied. She is keen to retain this mystery, a quality that is unique to painting. As she has said, 'I think that painting is a kind of alchemy the paint is transformed into image, and hopefully paint and image transform together into a third and new thing I want to catch something in the act of becoming something else, not in the sense of it becoming a leg or a tree or whatever, but something hard to name. Maybe that is why I am so inclined to stop short of letting things become a complete leg or tree, why I don't want things completely described' (C. Brown, quoted in Cecily Brown: Paintings, exh. cat., Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, 2005, p. 55).
Brown's profound engagement and understanding of the physical properties of her medium has led her into dialogue with the history of painting. L.C.V combines not only the illusionary techniques of Rococo flourishes with Impressionist painters with Modern abstraction, but also the expressive spontaneity of Abstract Expressionist painting with an understanding of composition and a lightness of touch learned from admiration of the Old Masters. 'When I first started painting, it seemed very natural to me to want to be in a conversation with old masters', Brown has said. 'I feel inseparable from the history of European painting; I definitely feel steeped in it' (C. Brown, quoted in Cecily Brown, New York 2008, p. 25).