A native Colorado artist, Gordon Brown, has been professionally painting for 30 years. His paintings characteristically highlight his ability to romanticize atmospheric elements; dawn, twilight, clouds, storms, haze, and fog. These elements act as abstractions within his compositions. With a passion for pulsating natural beauty—both moody and atmospheric—dominating his paintings, there is only an occasional glimpse of that “blue sky.” Crashing surf, passing storms, and vivid sunlit vistas set off by a ceiling of shadowy, moody heavens that are populated by wispy clouds—all are signature elements of a Gordon Brown landscape. Growing up near the Grand Mesa of Colorado has no doubt seeped into Brown’s æsthetic and artistic vision, working as a compass to guide his initial responses to painting.
Brown freely admits, “I borrowed from the old masters, the modern masters, and every artist I know. I'm always experimenting, occasionally destroying and not worrying if it will work or not; being childlike, that’s how I approach painting.” This unwavering commitment to diversity—testing his limits and looking for more ways to interpret on canvas what he sees—has kept Brown’s work fresh and ever-evolving. In his short career of nearly thirty years, Gordon Brown has carved a solid niche for himself as a “new” old master of the luminous landscape.
Brown has recently developed new techniques to alter his surface texture, specifically in his abs tract paintings. He utilizes masonite board or aluminum sheets as rigid substrates so that he can scratch into the built-up layers of paint.