Featured Artist - Jerry
Brown
Jerry Brown grew up in St. Louis, Missouri but has lived in Huntsville,
Alabama since 1960. From an early age he showed an aptitude for
drawing and planned on a career in art. The perceived difficulties
in making a living as an artist caused him to postpone this dream
and obtain an engineering degree. But over the years he has maintained
an on-again-off-again interest in art and, since his retirement
in 1994, has devoted his full attention to oil painting.
Jerry's work has changed since he began to paint in earnest, first focusing on impressionism and post-impressionistic techniques. His goal was to increase the visual experience of the viewer by a loose application of paint, broken and softened edges, a reduced emphasis on details and conventional local color, a heightened sensitivity to simultaneous contrast, optical mixtures and a pastel palette. His preference for a painting knife rather than a brush resulted in a more irregular surface, especially when multiple layers of paint were built up. This approach also produced accidental occurrences that enhanced the image. In his later works, he went back to the brush in his series of "prismatic" paintings that appear to some viewers as if looking through a cut glass window. Because these paintings were so time consuming, he later concentrated on a series of dog portraits that were rather sketchy and quickly done. A series of chicken paintings, self-portraits, scenes of Huntsville and nude studies followed these.
Jerry has studied painting with several local artists including Jack Dempsey, and at the University of Alabama in Huntsville with Mark Marchlinski, Andy Wynn, Susan Truman-McGlohon (Blu Smith) and Jill Johnson. While at UAH Mr. Brown also studied printmaking with Michael Crouse and sculpture with Glen Dasher and Everet Cox. His early impressionistic works were influenced by his study with Lois Griffel at the Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Jerry's works have been displayed at several Tennessee Valley galleries including the Huntsville Art League gallery, the Signature gallery, Art Mart, Amuse, Five Points and Artistic Images galleries in Huntsville, the Dragonfly gallery in Fayetteville, TN and Grisham-Cornell and Willis-Gray in Decatur, AL. He has had several one-man shows, including the Spring 2005 Show at the Heritage Club of Huntsville, a two-man show at 801 Franklin in the fall of 2002, and two Limelight Shows at HAL. Four of his paintings were juried into the "Unique Views of Huntsville" group showing at the Huntsville Museum of Art in 2005, where one was selected for an Exceptional Art Award. Another four paintings were later selected for inclusion in the "Local Color" show at the Huntsville Museum of Art in 2005.
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