Lloyd Brown Mixed Media

Lloyd Brown (American, Born 1957) "Imitation of Nature Number 30: An Impaled Drawing of an Autumn Leaf," 1998 mixed media 10 15/16 x 8 11/16 x 1 7/8 inches including artist-made fram...

"As a child, art lay in the mountains, valleys, farms, and small towns of Utah. Art was those things that one might identify as nostalgia. It was not a gas station, picnic area, motel, or place to stop and get a hamburger. What I saw and realized in Richardson was that all things are significant and nostalgia wasn't necessarily confined to the distant past. In painting, the Grand Canyon and a garbage can are equal. It is not what they are, but the note of recognition they carry that one responds to. As I sit at home in my trailer in Utah, I am aware of the blue in the sky. I listen to the songs of birds and the faint hum of a lawnmower. Occasionally, a car will drive by. There is vacuuming to do, a bed to be made, and all around me there seem to be notes of recognition. The sky reminds me of other skies. The day reminds me of other times and places. These times could be Houston or Phoenix. Some of these places could be Braum’s Ice Cream, Helene's, or a field of sunflowers. These are notes of recognition. And McDonald’s and a cloud formation may just be the carriers. For the past nine years I’ve been making dioramic scenes of Texas, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. Some of the scenes depict wide open spaces. Others are more concerned with the suburbs. In all cases, I try to make the rendering true. I don’t shuffle or delete things to fit the compositional demands of art. I never look down a highway and think that what I am seeing is incomplete or that it needs my order. My art is descriptive. It is a kind of reporting. What I do could be called an imitation of man’s nature. At a place like the Palace Cafe, pick-up trucks are parked out front. Old Coca Cola signs with a weathered cafe sign rest on an awning stabilized by iron cables. The building may have been a hotel, department store or a bank. A red sports car sits across the street. In the noon day, street lamps tower. In the blue sky, power lines cross. And out in the parking lot, there is a crushed Dairy Queen...