Ray Brown at The Gallery at CVMC — Transformative Moves II

NNEMoCA is pleased to announce an exhibition of the works of beloved Central Vermont artist, the late Ray Brown at The Gallery at Central Vermont Medical Center (CVMC). Ray and his wife Jody owned and ran The Drawing Board in Montpelier for many decades, and an artist community and resource center developed around it.

Ray studied at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan before becoming a printmaker in Boston. He taught for a short time in Quincy, Massachusetts, created ceramic works of art, and even started a business with a friend making gilded wooden bas reliefs of fish in Stowe, Vermont before settling into the largest arc of his career as an artist: painting and drawing.

He loved to capture the architectural elements in the rural landscape. Ray seemed to have a particular fondness for barns and depicted them as agrarian landscape elements as well as color studies. His landscape works had a huge fan base, and they would sell almost as quickly as they were presented to the public. These were sensitive, jewel-like canvases, and although very successful with this line of work, Ray often said that he wished he could loosen up his style.

In 2006 he had a massive stroke which affected his dominant side. Ray could not imagine being unable to continue to work in his studio daily, as he had done for over 20 years, so he trained his non-dominant hand to learn to paint. For the next 14 years, he created an entirely new body of work incorporating color as a landscape element in a manner bordering on synesthesia. This was precipitated by annual Italian trips that Ray and Jody made for a number of years. The light and landscape elements there had a profound impact on Ray’s painting. These works are colorful, abstract, and joyous celebrations.

The house and barn forms started re-emerging back into these creations in an entirely new manner. Interestingly, the last body of works that were created reference earlier pre-stroke works. Ray painted from photographs and from his earlier sketchbooks. These last works have a strong connection to his landscape paintings executed before his stroke. There is a panel in this exhibition that illustrates this well with paintings from both periods side-by-side. 

This may be the last complete retrospective survey show of the artwork of the community treasure that is Ray Brown.

Ray Brown - Photo by Jack Rowell