Margaret Brown Biography

I grew up in Manhattan with summers at my family’s 18th century barn house on the eastern end of Long Island. Both environments are richly embedded in my being, affecting all my artwork for the past 29 years of painting and the past 24 years of showing and selling.

Having a natural & innate propensity for art, I inevitably gravitated towards it. I drew my entire life finding my subject matter in the faces of friends and relatives or the corners of my home practicing and perfecting the rendering of whatever I saw. Then when I was in my late 20’s I decided to treat myself to what seemed almost exotic; oil painting lessons. I immediately discovered color and art buyers immediately discovered me as an expressive, passionate colorist. 

At first, while naive and new to painting, in order to be “painterly” I distorted the images I painted. Although I was actually exploring color, my subject matter was definitely rough and not refined.

I painted like this for about 10 years until my teacher from an advanced oil painting class encouraged me to go back to my drawings, refine them and keep my images genuine. I soon realized that the more defined my images were, the freer I was able to be with my backgrounds. I realized that the fundamental aspect of art, drawing, was essential to the open ended freedom of expression I seemed to be bursting to explore with my art. 

It also was becoming apparent that formal structure and refinement in all things was what I needed to express myself with complete freedom. Studying art history through my advanced oil painting class and books on art as well as regular museum and gallery visits were satiating my soul. My grammar and high school education at the elite Chapin School in New York presented me with a formality of culture that became ingrained in me; became truly a part of me. And my college, Trinity College in Hartford, CT with its excellence in education, its caliber in the world of small liberal arts colleges, its genuine beauty as an architecturally exquisite campus with pristine landscaping and the presence of history everywhere – all of that became a part of me, deep down.

    “I carry these things with me as I paint every single painting from beginning to end. I carry these things with me as I draw each drawing seeking the line or the gesture or the shape or the mood that will inspire me to do a painting.”

With the shift to attention on my actual drawings, I went on to explore many different series with my art. Each one (Trees to Abstract Landscapes to Abstract Still Life Paintings to Tools to fruit and finally figures ) pushed me to resolve certain question I had with expressing what I was seeking to express.

Ultimately, I ended up where I am today which is very unfinished and always still seeking. No matter what my subject matter now, with my constantly growing level of drawing ability and color language fluency, I am focussing on “The Process of Drawing and Painting.” Now as I work through what I know about both drawing and painting, the viewer is brought in to this raw, exploratory state. Color still is my true subject and my subject matter still provides the emotion to each painting but now my process for expressing these elements is the ultimate end, my goal. I am challenged to hold onto the integrity of my very basic process of both drawing and painting all while creating Expressionist paintings where color dictates as the subject and the spirit of my subject matter is felt.

And, since I have arrived at a place of genuine confidence with my process and the art I am presenting to the world, I have shifted from having my art solely in private homes to proudly and prominently on display in some notable public venues (Danny Meyer’s restaurant, Maialino in the Gramercy Park Hotel, NY, NY, The Cafe at Fairway Market, Broadway & 74th Street, NY, NY, Brill Securities, Inc., NY, NY). 

With these successes and my ever growing list of collectors and private students, I have discovered that speaking about my art through all forms of interviews (oral public speaking, radio, video, written for Blogs or for articles or for art books) is yet another accomplishment I savor and look forward to doing so much more.