From Rabbits to Shipwrecks: Cecily Brown Explores 30 Years of Painting

Cecily Brown’s “Themes and Variations” was on view this past spring at The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Organized with the Barnes and the Dallas Museum of Art (where it was previously up), it brought together over 30 paintings by the British-based artist made over the past 30 years. 

Working with curators Simonetta Fraquelli and Anna Katherine Brodbeck, the painter selected works that were laid out thematically, representing different time periods and focuses of her practice. Early works showcase motifs like rabbits in vivid color and gesture, with layered paint and gleaming finishes. One room is devoted to works with a much more restrained palette, of blacks, grays, whites, and creams, where figures lie in repose, skin exposed. Larger later paintings, allude to Fragonard’s The Swing, Delacroix’s The Shipwreck of Don Juan, or 17^th-century Flemish and Dutch still lifes.

While references abound, the magic of a Cecily Brown painting lies in its ability to exist in that in-between. A figure nearly focuses into view. The shape of the ocean waves slip between your fingertips. A table laden with the bounty of a hunt bleeds and blurs at the edges. 

Whitewall sat down with Brown in Philadelphia at the opening of the show, where she spoke about her studio approach, why so much happens for the artist in-between, and the universality of the human condition. 

WHITEWALL: Walking around the show, I loved seeing you look at earlier paintings and seem to reflect on who you were when you made them. Is putting the show together a bit like that too? 

CECILY BROWN: Yes. A lot of the paintings I hadn’t seen for many, many years, so that was quite nerve-racking at the beginning. Before the install, because I really hadn’t seen some of these things for years. And I don’t know if people understand quite how insecure most artists are. Even though I’ve done well in the eyes of the world, I have a huge amount of insecurity and self-doubt and paranoia of not being good enough. Especially showing somewhere like this and I’ve been having such fancy shows the last couple of years. So there’s a lot of imposter syndrome: What will people say? I am my own worst critic. But I also think that’s healthy—and that is the way it should be—as long as it’s not destructive. As long as I don’t go around destroying paintings that are perfectly fine. 

I’m less neurotic than I used to be about that. I’ll give things more time before I dismiss them. But all that is to say it was nerve-racking seeing paintings again after so long. But I was very lucky that the curators selected paintings that I was pretty sure would be okay. I’ve always tried hard never to let paintings leave the studio if I’m not 100 percent happy that they’re an A or A plus painting. But inevitably there’s a couple where you might cringe and think that just wasn’t an A plus. 

But with so many artists, there’s a real range within their work and especially as a painter. It’s just as interesting to see the clumsy Cézanne that didn’t quite work as it is to see the spectacular Cezanne where there’s not a stroke out of place kind of thing. 

WW: And there are some great Cézanne’s here at The Barnes, and also some quirky stuff. Are there pieces in the collection that were a joy for you to come back to? 

CB: My gosh. It’s so hard to pick, isn’t it? There are just so many. What strikes me over and over is you’ve never seen it all. And you’ll have a favorite one day, and then the next day or—on the next visit—it will be something else. This has been a great privilege because we’ve gotten to visit the collection multiple times during the in-store. The things that have jumped to mind first are the Picasso, Girl with a Goat, and also Harlequin and Child, and also the Matisse Bonheur de Vivre. It doesn’t really get much better than that. And just the way that you suddenly see some little Goya that you never saw before, you know. There are some smaller Cézanne Bathers that are to die for. 

The Personal Artistic Journey of Cecily Brown 

WW: You shared that when you were younger, you had a chip on your shoulder about being a painter, given that, “painting was dead.” How did you get over that?   

CB: I feel like people still feel guilty and embarrassed to be painters. Isn’t it funny? I guess it’s because there’s something intrinsically embarrassing about being a painter, except for very cool ones, where it’s really just a process. For the most part, you’re really exposing yourself. And I think for figurative painters, even worse, because that whole thing of seeing the meaning in the face. 

There’s still something cringey about being a painter. But that’s maybe one of its pluses. It’s not necessarily negative that you are, it’s a bit like rock-and-roll. You are putting yourself out there. Like playing the guitar, a songwriter or a poet. I would have loved to be proficient in other mediums and say something where I felt like I was inventing something new, but realistically, I don’t.

“It’s a bit like rock-and-roll. You are putting yourself out there,”

Cecily Brown

When I was younger, I had massive pangs of envy, wishing that I could think in a new medium or that I could invent something new. But now I feel like I revel in the restrictions that come with painting. Everything comes in waves. As you get older, you realize it’s just all a cycle and something will come back. The thing I find most interesting is, for young artists, painting never died, but it’s still sort of in the air that it’s a bit like an old lady. It’s a little bit tricky in that way. Because it’s seen as overly earnest, see, and sincere. And that’s partly why I always wanted people to notice that paintings were supposed to be funny, as well. 

And there are a lot of paintings in the collection where there’s humor. I’m sure Picasso would have burst out laughing at something he painted. So one thing I always want to fight, and if I do anything with younger kids, is that the museum’s supposed to be this deadly serious place. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be joyful. You don’t have to put your serious face on just because you’re coming into an art gallery. 

“One thing I always want to fight, is that the museum’s supposed to be this deadly serious place,”

Cecily Brown

WW: You can definitely see the humor tied in with references to art history—there are a lot of entry points for your work. Whether it’s subject, color, contemporary events…

CB: We talked about cycles, and I was thinking about how it’s interesting that while maybe I’m not going to write about this contemporary political thing that’s happening, going back to works like the “Shipwrecks,” it ended up being contemporary, right? In history, we see these cycles, too. So even perhaps what you’re, like, subconsciously drawn to—maybe in that time period—is because of what is happening in the world now. 

WW: Is that something you notice only after the fact?

CB: With the “Shipwrecks,” after the first day or so I realized it was a relevant, topical thing to paint. I was a bit afraid that it would seem too literal, which is maybe why the paintings became much more abstract than anything I had for a while. I want to remove it from that reality. It’s a new reality. It’s entering into this invented reality.

I ended up focusing on paintings of a tragedy rather than a tragedy. My painting is twice removed. You know, there are only a few stories in the world in the end. Just like there are only a few positions the human body can take. One of the things I love about seeing old art, with people in it, is that their bodies are the same as ours. You have a figure sitting and you’re like, know what that pose feels like. Someone’s arm is raised. Everything that’s old is new or coexisting. Everything changes but it all stays the same. I think that’s one of painting’s strengths. The subjects I’m drawn to often have that feeling where they span. It could have been made at any time, basically. Just as painters have always been concerned with the same few things—manipulating a material and light and space and color—there’s only a limited range of things we deal with in our lives and that hasn’t changed since medieval times, really. 

“Everything changes but it all stays the same. I think that’s one of painting’s strengths,”

Cecily Brown

WW: And like you were saying before, artists are sensitive. Artists are people, too—right? Even those from history!  

CB: They were people who fell in love, couldn’t sleep, had a kid, maybe lost their mother. You know, it’s very common. I think I want that common ground, and that’s one thing I like going back to paintings for. 

The Multifaceted Studio Process 

WW: You’ve said that you don’t make a work for the market or for a specific exhibition. 

CB: I think that’s really interesting—and probably really challenging—to maintain as in your studio. You don’t have to show everything. You want to show everything as an artist, right? That’s the goal, to make a great work that does show. I think the art world has become a lot more commercial, and people got used to selling everything. And that just was never the way it was. And in a way, it’s not the way it should be.

I always make more work than I need for a show. I always make works that don’t get finished. And I always encourage young artists: just make work. Don’t be thinking about the outside world when you’re doing this. 

“I always encourage young artists: just make work,”

Cecily Brown

It’s tricky, because I think about the audience—like, how will they see this? But just that sense that it’s for you, you’re making it for yourself in the first instance. Otherwise, it’s never going to translate into something deep. A musician, for example, goes into their studio, I assume, and just plays around. There’s no physical evidence. Or the actor goes through lines. There’s plenty of parts of the arts where there’s nothing to show for your work. And painting should be the same. You should have weeks in the studio and it’s absolutely fine if there’s nothing to show for it. 

WW: Do you document the stages of your paintings in the studio?

CB: In a very informal way. I’ll take pictures on my phone. Mostly because then I look at them at night. I nearly always take pictures at the end of the day. It’s very fragile, like getting the painting right. And of course we didn’t have phones then to photograph everything. So with the older works, I love seeing old studio pictures and working out what I was working on at the same time. 

Someone had an image the other day of me in an early studio. There was a painting I totally remembered but I hadn’t thought about it for years. 

WW: Speaking of tackling subjects that have always been with us in humanity: Is there a trope you still don’t feel ready to tackle? One you are hoping to take on? 

CB: Yes, I’m calling them Woman and Child. “Woman” is a big distinction because I don’t want it to necessarily be the “mother.” Haven’t done man and child yet but yeah they’re woman and child.

WW: What made you want to try it? 

CB: It actually came about in an interesting way. A friend who’s a curator and a really good writer, Isabelle Graw, put together this show last summer called “The Mother Position.” It wasn’t just about being a mother and an artist or that. I’d done these paintings when I had my daughter that were something to do with having a baby. But at the time I didn’t want it to be obvious that they were to avoid autobiographies. But when Isabelle started talking to me about this mother position idea, I thought, I can revisit those birth paintings.

 So I went back into them. And then, you know, it’s just one of those things where I’m like, Oh, good subject. I’ve never done it. And then also this really interesting thing started happening where I thought I was painting myself as mother and the child as my child. But I realized when I was painting that I was the baby, and they started looking like my mom. 

Most of them haven’t worked out yet, so they may never see the light of day. The only one I really like at the moment is very weird. But I think, and again this is one of those funny little problems that people might not think about, but I think the canvas is the wrong shape. But it’s really fun painting the little baby, because I’ve never done it. They’re on the back burner at the moment, but it may work out. 

WW: I loved the watercolors in the show. Do you show them very much? 

CB: I hadn’t for many, many years. Not because I didn’t want to—more that nobody was really interested in my drawings or prints. I did a show at the Drawing Center in New York and had a studio visit from the curator. She was just like, “I can’t believe how many drawings you have.” Because I literally had 25 years of drawings that I’d never shown or sold or put into the world.

WW: Your work exists at this edge between figuration and abstraction. And often your work is sort of pitted against this very macho Abstract Expressionism trope. What do you make of that? 

CB: I thought things were better when I was younger for women, for example. It seemed like things had gotten a lot better and that feminism had come a long way. And things are so much worse now. Now I’m like, That is what I’m doing. This is the first time there’s been a show that talks about there being a feminist twist on things, or from the female point of view. And when I was young, I thought, I’m a painter. I’m not a female painter. I didn’t want to be in women’s shows and things. And I still don’t love the all-women show because I don’t think we should separate. But I think when I was younger, it seemed like women were really on the up and up and I think there have been so many setbacks that anything that pushes forward the idea of a strong woman is very good in my book. In the end, I don’t think I paint as a woman. I just paint as myself.