 | Nigel Brown has established a reputation as one the most important figurative artists working in New Zealand and is acknowledged as New Zealand’s leading narrative artist. His distinctive works are a blend of symbolic and expressionistic approaches with a deep social concern. He regularly exhibits his paintings at both Milford Galleries Dunedin and milford galleries queenstown.
Nigel Brown actively uses story telling precepts within the ‘confines’ of the image. He directly and selectively employs history, literature, politics etc as devices and in so doing examines the varied plights of the individual and environment with an emotional, intuitive sympathy which is accurate, incisive and clothed in a vernacular of the human condition.
His work expresses fundamental spiritual and humanistic concerns common to mankind. These are infused with the particularity of cultural location and reference, the specific of place and event, the dynamism of individual character and personality with the narrative (artist as author) point of view.
He is a potent myth-maker and articulates the conscience of a country reinterpreting and revisiting its past. He translates this and expresses its (discordant) present with the expectation of better things to come.
Nigel Brown (ONZM) born Invercargill, New Zealand 1949. Bachelor of Fine Arts, Elam School of Arts, University of Auckland 1971. Brown began his full time artist career in 1972. Since then he has exhibited extensively in public and private galleries throughout New Zealand and has had several touring exhibitions. After many years living in suburban Auckland, he moved to a rural coastal property in Southland in 2000. He has received numerous awards, commissions and residencies and is represented in most New Zealand public collections and many private collections. Brown was awarded the Order of NZ Merit for Services to painting and printmaking in 2004 and in 2005 Brown was awarded a three week residency in Russia hosted by NZ’s ambassador in Moscow, Stuart Prior.
In addition to his painting, Brown is also a printmaker and he has undertaken two significant stained glass window designs – St Mary’s Catholic Church, Auckland (1991) and Auckland Cathedral, Parnell (1998). In 2000-2001 ‘Points Along the Way’ (a survey) toured New Zealand. Most recently Brown completed ‘Seven Last Words’ (2009) a suite of lithographs commissioned by Chamber Music NZ in association with String Quartet in honour of the 200th anniversary of Haydn's death.
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