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Inga Kimberly Brown Artist Statement
My recent works are oil paintings on sewn canvas panels and un sewn canvases on which a hybridization takes place through the implementation of three-dimensional objects that are either sewn on or attached with adhesive, threads, and paint, along with organic materials such as eggshells and holy water. I combine seed beads, faux grass, and 24-karat gold leaf, as well as oil on wooden extensions of the canvas.
The work shows elements of ritual and tradition.
For inspiration, I use family photographs as well as non-photographic references from my imagination and intuition to paint what my mind sees and wants to convey in the painting. The focus is an abstract dialogue with my mixed tri-racial heritage, taking place in the antebellum and postbellum South as filtered through my mind and vision. In some of the paintings, I subtract color to add a past, or create mythical visions of a bastardized culture, juxtaposed with the saturated color of the present. The compositions explore conflict and isolation, while sharing narratives of the African-American, European-American, and Indigenous American heritage I embody. The hybridization of the materials in the work becomes autobiographic.
