READING ART/ February 2025

READING ART

In the Spotlight

TRUTH

White marble, 14 x 6 x 4 inches

Valentines Day goes back to the Greeks and Romans, the Roman god Cupid with his quiver of arrows and the poet Chaucer in the Middle Ages who was the first to link February 14th with love. On this day, we choose to spotlight the work of an amazing sculptor who has formally studied in both Italy and Greece, who fell in love with marble and has been romancing the stone ever since.

Britt Brown has lived and sculpted in all of the classic places: Italy, Greece and now Taos. She speaks of the wind as a natural force that she internalizes as she carves marble in the shadow of Taos Mountain, a force revealed in her marble sculptures of heroic female figures.

In her open air studio, Brown prefers the reductive process required by marble, eliminating all but the essential. Her work is the embodiment of poise, power and the timeless sensuality of the feminine form.

“ The secret to a long life is falling in love with making things.”

- Gretchen Ewert, Taos Artist

ARTIST STATEMENT

I was always interested in art. You are born an artist, the desire to create isn’t chosen, it’s a compulsion, but a beautiful one. I found my way to sculpture through my love of travel as a teenager struck speechless standing in front of Nike at The Louvre. After that moment there was no turning away from sculpture.

I studied first clay sculpture, an additive process at The National Academy in New York. My teacher had Greek ancestry and we would take weekly trips to The Met to look at the aliveness of the Greek art compared to the relative deadness of the Roman copies.

I left New York and after an extended stay in Pietra Santa, Italy to learn the basics of marble carving. I went to Greece where I lived for ten years immersed in the beauty of marble.

Stone sculpture, being a reductive process was so much more interesting to me. There was an actual dialogue between you and the stone… what stays and what goes in order to tell your story. As I grow older I realize not much stone needs to be moved. The marble block is already perfect and my figures, always a nod to Nike are heroic and more and more simple in form as I learn to let the stone speak for me.

While living in Greece I was exposed to the burial vessels carved in marble and placed in tombs. These were the most treasured art I had ever seen. I began creating vessels. And now you have another level of dialogue… between the artist and the stone and now between the vessel and the object it will hold. For me this somehow completes a circle. From nature (the stone) to woman (the shaper) and the object (an offering.)

All art should be created in love, for love.

-Britt Brown

Happy Valentine’s Day

Sign outside ULTRAVIOLET

Modern floristry and marble sculpture are an unlikely pairing found in Britt's shop Ultraviolet located at 107 B Bent Street in Taos, the only time you are likely to see Britt indoors! An enigma herself, the sculptor who loves flowers is never happier than when covered from head to toe in marble dust, when she must resemble a marble goddess herself.

Learn more about Britt Brown's works by visiting her website:

studiobrittbrown.com

﻿ARTIST STATEMENT

ARTIST STATEMENT