stacey johnson–brown

artist's statement

My work is largely centered around self-identity which I choose to explore through the self-portrait, the figure and still–life.

My current choice in popular subject matter and media came as a result of using the device known as an iPod to create images. Because of its portability, the device afforded me the ability to paint anything anywhere at any time. This nomadic and journalistic experience led me to search for a means to reproduce the same experience in natural media. Gouache, a medium I had painted very little with over my artistic career, allowed me this freedom in a way that my previous medium restricted. The resulting work is fresher and the content is much richer.

It is the normal circumstance of the creative mother to work in the periphery of her day-to-day life and responsibilities. So I most often paint at night when my children are asleep. In the paintings, I make every effort to etch out what the different aspects of my life mean to me at the time I am painting them. More specifically, the paintings adhere to certain themes that I find intriguing about my life. Like any other woman, I wear many hats. But the hats I find most interesting are those I wear being a mother, being a wife, being an employee, and being a black woman. These hats show up in the paintings in many ways such as colorful and playful renderings of toys that conflict with the way my daughter, a sound-sensitive special needs child, "plays" with them...as drawings and paintings of my husband known as "Big Daddy" or a young son in training known as "Little Daddy" and what that idea signifies to a man versus his wife...as digital and mobile drawings around the office where I, an unusual corporate employee, usually find myself...as paintings that talk about what it means to me to be a woman in this society...and as paintings that reflect on what growing up black meant to me. The treatment of bright coloring tends to help soften the edges on what would sometimes be considered harder life issues for any woman.

Through the paintings, I search for where these areas of my life connect and where I wish to bring them further into a more unified existence with my practice to better understand my place in the world and in the continuum of painting. Over time the work as it is collected seems to take on a blog-like aspect. Often, the title of the painting or drawing I want to do is thought of before the painting is ever made. As I paint the subject, the "why" of painting it seems to unfold to me during the process. Frequently, I post the title, the "why" and the paintings and drawings on a popular website that houses a community of artists of various interests where a discussion is at times sparked about them and I participate. The paintings and drawings illustrate a story for me and stabilizes what would normally be a debilitating overload of information. In this way, the paintings become a collection of my own visual narratives and thoughts that evolve over time.