Bea Brown

 

 

 

 

 

 

I came back to painting in August 2022 after an 18 year gap.  I gained a BA (Hons) Fine Art degree in 1997 and took a ‘short’ break in 2004 having had my own studio and teaching practice.   The truth is I had discovered millinery which I studied in Luton, London and briefly New York and France.  I worked for myself as a milliner for the next 17 years studying periodically under the Queen’s ex milliner, Marie O’Regan (who herself had served an apprenticeship at Chanel in Paris.  I made many hats for ‘mothers’ of the bride’.  

Covid came along in 2020 and I put down my working needle. I still very much enjoy crewel embroidery.

 

I’m never idle for too long and the urge to paint returned.  Making colour ‘resonate’ is my ‘thing’ with unexpected colour juxtapositions and palettes.

 

I do plenty of woodland walks with my dogs and I find the seasonal changes in the growth of plant life and fungi very hard to ignore. I used to paint themes of motherhood when I was at University and greatly admired Mary Cassatt but now I scratch my head and wonder where my painting style influence is coming from.  I have always liked decorative wood and stone inlays found in historical furniture with their high contrast colours against dark backgrounds.  I also have placemats and scrapbook keepsakes of some of these treasures from country houses I have visited in the past and suspect these may have come to the fore in my work.  I alwaysliked the stained glass effects of Roualt’s paintings.  The colours really sing.

 

Now I am back painting again since August 2022 I have made four studies on my woodland theme I call my Autumn Gold series. They comprise, in the order  they were painted Magpie Inkcap, Babes in the Wood (it’s full title is the ‘Interconnectedness of everything’ because I was reading about fungi, mycelium, leaves, breakdown and decomposition and the birth of the new, tiny’pinprick’ mushrooms, so clean and new). 

Moss and Pinkgills and Lone Mushroom (Brittlestem).

 

Because of the intensive looking at fungi I give my eyes a rest (or rather change my focus) and paint landscapes.  I also attend summer schools and weekly life drawing classes and am a member of Herts Visual Arts Forum.

​