Alannah Brown is adept at both print making and painting. Often utilizing sharp a photorealist approach depicted recycled remu, her imagery reflects her rural upbringing in Central Otago. Whether this is memories of a dilapidated storage shed, farm animals, an old car left to rust in the weather or the weeds and insects that quietly invade the territory humankind have established for themselves.
Dunedin based, Brown graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Otago Polytechnic School of Art in 2000. A finalist in the Norsewear Art Award 2005 and the Waikato Art Awards 2006, Brown has regularly exhibited in both public and dealer galleries throughout New Zealand.
Animal Portrait series:
This new group of animal portraits are an exploration of my interest in the introduced species of New Zealand.
The family portrait has been replaced by images of our animal cousins introduced in the early colonisation of New Zealand. Through no fault of their own and in fact to their credit, many of these introduced species have adapted marvellously to the harsh New Zealand climate, thriving to such an extent that they are now considered “pests”, invading and destroying much of our native wildlife.
This extreme oversight is of course, due to man’s ignorance and a desire to recreate the homelands of Europe. They saw our wild bush as a land needing to be tamed and dominated, stripping its bountiful resources bare for their own utilization.
By presenting these pests in the manner of family portraits, they become reflections of ourselves our ancestors, and our role in the ongoing destruction of our native forests by our own hand.
|
