peter brown/paintings: ROME series

ROME series

Rome 2.79, ac/panel, 15 x 15

Rome 14.1, ac/panel, 15 x 15

Rome 2.82, ac/panel, 15 x 15

Rome 2.11, ac/panel, 15 x 15

Rome 9.3, ac/panel, 15 x 15

Rome 2.60, ac/panel, 15 x 15

Rome Sequence 1, ac/panel, 15 x 15

Rome 2, ac/panel, 15 x 15

Rome 2.48, ac/panel, 15 x 15

About the Paintings

The Rome series was begun in Rome in 2010 while I was a visiting artist at the American Academy. My research focused on ancient Roman mosaics as well as those created for Roman churches in the 12th and 13th centuries by the Cosmati mosaicists.

The Woven paintings have been intentionally structured to emphasize formal aspects of color and shape and how they can be arranged to define form and space. The grid-like configuration is intended to enhance the spatial ambiguity, allowing the figure/ground relationships to shift.

The Interiors paintings focus on the metaphoric nature of architectural spaces. Some of them are inspired by research that I was able to do at various houses owned by Historic New England in New Hampshire and Maine over the course of three summers. All of them have elements of pure invention.

The Journal series is composed of multiple images joined together. The goal is to give various visual and psychological perspectives to the larger narrative.They often combine elements of painting and printmaking (mostly simple stencils). The images are, for the most part, autobiographical, and I think of them as journal entries.