Start with the title. That’s the strategy of Patrick Bell, co-owner of Olde Hope Antiques on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and it’s the tack he took when planning a new exhibition with artist, friend, and collaborator Laurene Krasny Brown. Their new show, Still Life in Motion, opens January 23, and, as the name suggests, it sets up a series of dichotomies where art and objects, old and new, figural and abstract works can live harmoniously together.
Brown will show over thirty new pieces, about half of which will be abstract works that highlight her interest in light and shadow and showcase her unique “antiqued” palette. Primarily working with gouache on paper, Brown uses an earthy spectrum of reds, ochers, greens, and blues that appear faded by time. Her finishes are saturated and matte, nearly chalky, which further develops the sense of connection to the past. After all, Bell notes, Brown’s work is created in her home studios (one in New York’s West Village and one on Martha’s Vineyard) where she is surrounded by the folk art collections she shares with her husband, illustrator Marc Brown. The two have amassed an outstanding array of antiques and primitive works, and her art, Bell says, must be considered in this context. Working among these treasures, Brown’s art shares the attention to detail and craftsmanship apparent in her collection, and riffs on some of its themes as she, for instance, translates antique board games and penny rugs into rhythmic modern collages.
The figural pieces in this exhibition continue Brown’s exploration of color, line, and shadow, and they introduce an element that’s absolutely intrinsic to her art: whimsy. She creates a surreal light-heartedness as she builds narratives and plays with dimensionality and scale. In Interior Meeting of the Minds, a young girl stands in a kitchen feeding a banana to a rather large pigeon. Another avian friend perches nearby on the back of a precariously tipped chair. All beg closer inspection, and, likely, a smile. In Tabletop Bouquet with Drapery: Still Life Collage an accordion-folded paper curtain breaks the plane of the frame and reaches out over layers of paper cut to form the window, table, vase, and plant. It’s a still life in motion.
“I love how in all of her compositions, even something as straightforward as a vase of flowers on a table, the most classic composition in art history, she does it in a completely unique, idiosyncratic way,” Bell says. “Even in a still life, nothing is stagnant. Down to the molecular level there’s always motion and energy.”
Brown’s work will be displayed among the Olde Hope collections of painted furniture, Shaker boxes, and hooked rugs in thoughtfully assembled tableaux, marrying the antiques with new art. “We are going to have fun with it,” Bell says. “This will be unlike anything collectors have seen before. We’ll be taking art off the walls and bringing it into the open space of the gallery.” That includes a round chair table in apple green paint that Bell acquired specifically for this exhibition. “Laurie is actually making out of paper a series of place settings and a centerpiece.” A life-size still life in motion.
Still Life in Motion • Olde Hope Antiques, New York • January 23 to March 15 • oldehope.com
