On Donna Brown’s Art

It may be said about Donna Brown’s art that it stems exclusively from her inner self. It is a body of work based on a strictly private world, that “speaks” an entirely private language.

Hers cannot be dubbed naive art. Naive artists cling to traditional painterly modes, endeavoring to simulate the various Great Masters in the History of Art. It is their failure to reach that goal that renders them naive artists.

An artist such as Donna Brown, on the other hand, creates primarily for herself, relating to her cultural environment and immediate milieu. Thus, her works transpire outside the binding system of styles and schools, allowing her to experiment in each and all.

The current show is an invitation to a journey within an inner realm of painting, an invitation into a colorful celebration of someone who secludes herself within the four walls of her work, untouched by influences that might leave their flawed impressions.

Donna Brown’s painting is totally, whole: each line is carefully measured in terms of form and energy in comparison to other lines and to the graphic grid as a whole.

The work originates primarily from the basic tension existing between the whiteness of the virginal surface of the canvas or paper and the mysterious energy and tension inherent in the finished work. The lines and colorful surfaces oscillate between these two poles in an interplay of wandering and chasing, advancing and retreating; a game underlied by the aspiration for greater precision so as to arrive at definite forms.

All the while, Donna strives to create a system of symbols that operates exclusively within her painterly domain.

Thus she opts for simple, concise elements, such that they will be able to inter-link infinitely, as it were, while preserving the inner regularity intrinsic to her paintings.