Sophy Brown
Bloodlines
Artist Reception and Gallery Talk:
Saturday, August 6, 2016, 2-5 pm
Each of Brown’s works is a spellbinding masterpiece of tight focus, broad contrast and sometimes delicate, sometimes explosive motion. Her innate understanding of equestrian form is unmatched, and her bone-deep connection to each subject is unmistakable in every bright color and bold line. Sophy’s ability to capture the visceral emotional responses of her equine subject matter is second to none.
Please Join Us For This Exciting Featured Artist Exhibition.
Showing Through August 27, 2016
Bloodlines
This August, Evergreen Fine Art Gallery is delighted in introducing local art-lovers to one of Colorado’s most gifted Western painters.
Following a three-hour Artist Reception beginning at 2 p.m. on Aug. 6, artist Sophy Brown’s solo exhibition, “Bloodlines,” will be on display at Evergreen Fine Art through the end of the month, powerfully showcasing Brown’s eloquently intimate visions of the West’s most evocative symbol. Brown tells the story of America’s modern frontier in the language of horses, a vivid visual dialect in which she is marvelously fluent.
“Sophy’s ability to capture the visceral emotional responses of her equine subject matter is second to none,” says Evergreen Fine Art’s gallery director, Doug Kacena. “Her subtle mastery of elements like tails, ears and musculature conveys the immediate feelings of horses.”
Born in Birmingham, England, Brown earned a bachelor’s degree in fine art from the prestigious Goldsmiths College of London University before setting sail for America in 1987 to pursue a master’s at the University of Michigan. Originally a student of the nonrepresentational school of painting and a muralist in high demand, Brown’s perspective shifted from the abstract to the equestrian in a single stroke.
“It was a commission to paint a dressage arena with life-size horses and riders that brought a lifelong appreciation of horses into the studio,” says Brown, who was featured on the March cover of Western Art Collector magazine. “It gave me a new life and direction.”
Brown established her studio in Longmont, finding Colorado ideally suited to her personal and artistic needs. “The climate, the mountains, the vast and varied skies, and of course a culture that includes the horse. On some level I feel quite akin to those Westerners of another century who, once here, decided to stay.”
To best practice her passion, the Englishwoman long ago turned to that most American of expositions she describes as “the sporting show-biz remnants of a practical past,” the ancient and honorable rite of the rodeo. From Cody to Colorado Springs, Brown enjoys unimpeded access to horses at work, horses at rest, horses at play, horses in every conceivable physical and emotional attitude.
Favoring acrylic on board, each of Brown’s works is a spellbinding masterpiece of tight focus, broad contrast and sometimes delicate, sometimes explosive motion. Her innate understanding of equestrian form is unmatched, and her bone-deep connection to each subject is unmistakable in every bright color and bold line.
“Horses display their inner life physically,” Brown explains. “If afraid, a horse’s whole body gets ready to move. He becomes light on his feet, muscles fire, nostrils flare, eyes and ears on full alert, and that eyeful is something I recognize in my bones. I have felt the same, and it’s a visceral recognition that is felt first.
“Looking at horses long enough, watching the big reactions and the very subtle, the jaded, the innocent, the exuberant, the peaceful and the disturbed – I find all of life in there.”
Sophy Brown on the Cover of
Western Art Collector March 2016