Above: Pottery by Yvonne Brown
The Fine Art Gallery at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College’s Jefferson Davis Campus in Gulfport will host the exhibit Two-Point Perspective, featuring works by Chad and Yvonne Brown, August 31-September 25.The opening reception will be on September 3 in the gallery.
Chad Brown, a native of Memphis, lives and works in Gulfport. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1996 and a master’s degree in 1998 from William Carey University. He jump started his painting career in 2007 at the George Ohr Fall Festival of the Arts. At first look, his paintings confound viewers as they struggle to find what relationship a diamond has with a crow or a daisy with a book. Soon, the viewer is conjuring stories of myth and symbolism. His use of everyday imagery and perspective (and sometimes actually cutting out the images so that the background of the painting is the wall) puts the objects in the viewer’s immediate presence. The artist’s subject matter becomes the viewer’s world. Clearly a fan of pop art and surrealism, he has embraced the genre of Pop Surrealism. In the last five years, he has developed a body of work covering topics such as the seasons to personal Biblical infusion. He paints or sculpts from life to join imagery together to form cohesive bonds of opposites.
Yvonne Brown is a full-time studio potter living and working in Gulfport. Born in Flint, Michigan, Yvonne grew up in Jackson, Tennessee. She moved to the Gulf Coast in 1992 to attend William Carey University on scholarship and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drawing and ceramics. She began her career as a studio potter in 1999 and has also taught pottery at various children’s art camps. She taught ceramics at William Carey University from 2005 to 2010. Her functional pottery is made from warm-brown stoneware clay using various forming methods, including hand building, extrusions and the potter’s wheel. Areas of texture accentuate the forms and invite the hand. The glossy surface and deep, rich colors of her glazes echo the natural beauty of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Her pottery is fired in an electric kiln to 2100°F using lead-free glazes, which are durable and food safe. Her work is crafted with careful attention to detail and intended to encourage contemplation and celebration of everyday objects.
Gallery hours are Monday–Thursday, 9 a.m.–3 p.m. and Friday, 9 a.m.–1 p.m. For more information, contact Cecily Cummings at cecily.cummings@mgccc.edu or (228) 897-3909.