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ANDY BROWNE
Biography
BFA in painting from Boston University in 1974.
Attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1976. Originally
from New England, moved to Ft. Myers, Florida in 1999. Currently
is a program manager at the United Arts Council of Collier County,
involved in outreach programming.
I
work mostly in oils in a series format in order to fully explore
a subject and to see where all the roads might take me. Since childhood,
I have felt a bit like a sort of interloper in this world, and that
feeling has been a primary motivation for my paintings. Painting
is a way to explore the world around me and to achieve a sense of
familiarity with it. An overriding realization that nature is not
a benign environment has dictated my sense of landscape. There is
nothing timid about the outdoors; not much is peaceful or relaxed.
Rather than soft sunsets, I tend to see the environment as awe-inspiring,
wonderful and beautiful, but also basically hostile. Humankind should
not feel in charge or secure. Nature is not a nice place. It's survival
of the fittest and eat or be eaten. My wariness is heightened even
further in Florida. There are alligators that bite, snakes that
bite, fire ants, thorny plants, pointy sword plants, invasive plants
that would wrap their tentacles around you if you stay too long
in one place. I try to convey some of this anxiety in my pictures,
to remind the viewer that all might not be quite as it seems in
a landscape. We should look over our shoulders from time to time,
or at least glance up to see if the vultures
are circling too low.
