Written by Amanda David
Serpentine presents Picture Making, an exhibition featuring new and recent works by Cecily Brown, one of the most important painters working today. The exhibition will run at Serpentine South and marks a homecoming for the British artist who has lived and worked in New York for the past thirty years.
Over three decades Brown has gained a reputation for her unique approach to painting, characterised by vigorous brushwork, a vivid sense of colour and dynamic all-over compositions that hold the viewer in an active space of looking.
Picture Making brings together works inspired by Serpentine’s unique location in Kensington Gardens, a site of personal significance to the artist. Themes of nature and park life have long shaped Brown’s formal explorations and, for her exhibition at Serpentine, the artist revisits familiar subjects such as amorous couples, woodland settings and uncanny nature walks.
New works made specifically for the exhibition will be shown alongside a selection of key paintings dating back to 2001 to contextualise the continuities and evolutions that have taken place in Brown’s approach to painting over the past 25 years. In turn, recent monotypes and drawings offer insight into Brown’s broader practice, touching upon her early memories of the English landscape, her interest in children’s book illustrations, and the darker sides of nursery rhymes and cautionary tales.
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