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May Issue 2009
Somerhill Gallery
in Durham, NC, Features Works by Michael Brown
Somerhill
Gallery in Durham, NC, will present an exhibit of recent paintings
on canvas by Michael Brown, on view from May 3 - June 5, 2009.
Native North Carolinian Michael Brown chose his career as a painter when he was four years old. After an extensive art education in the US and abroad (including living in Peru, Spain, Massachusetts and New York) he became a commercial mural painter when he was thirty-four. His many popular outdoor murals in Chapel Hill, NC, have made him well known on the North Carolina art scene. Beyond being known in North Carolina he has also done large art projects in Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, New York, Chicago and Baltimore.
As part of the Chapel Hill/UNC bicentennial celebration, Brown was commissioned to do a painting for the Franklin Street Post Office as a companion piece to an existing mural by the distinguished Depression-era artist Dean Cornwell. His large realistic historical paintings also circle the walls in the historic Orange County District Court in Hillsborough and in the rotunda of the Main Branch of the Greensboro (NC) Public Library. He was recently featured in articles in the News and Observer, Carolina Alumni Review, Southern Living, Oxford American and others. Brown's clients include The University of North Carolina, Duke University, IBM, the cities of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Durham , Raleigh, Greensboro, Roxboro, Tarboro, Mebane, Henderson, and others.
In the past Brown has served on the Chapel Hill Public Arts Commission of Chapel Hill, and as a juror for regional art competitions. He helped organize the Carrboro Art Group, an artists' co-op that, among other things, created elaborate floats for North Carolina holiday season parades, and the Apple Chill Fair. He has participated in various one-person and group art shows, including a retrospective of 30 years of his smaller paintings at the Chapel Hill Museum.
Somerhill Gallery Director Joseph Rowand developed a friendship with artist Brown when they both were on the Chapel Hill Fine Arts Commission. Rowand did an "about face" one day when he spotted a small oil painting on canvas of a large nude woman hanging out the wash. "I remember that painting clearly", says Rowand. "It was a revelation, in my esteem, recognizing what a brilliant easel painter Michael is. I began planning this exhibition in my mind's eye years before we had this large body of work assembled."
Early in his career, Brown taught art in private and public schools in New York City, including a Guggenheim funded program for at-risk students, Spence School and at Meredith College. Michael holds a BFA from UNC Chapel Hill and resided as a fellow for two years at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass. He was a fellow in the mural program at the National Academy of Design in New York City
Throughout Brown's 20 year long career as a muralist he has taken time to explore more personal themes and develop his skills. These paintings are a product of those more private times.
For further information
check our NC Commercial Gallery listings, call the gallery at
919/968-8868 or visit (www.somerhill.com).
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