At the River's Edge

Emily Brown "At the River's Edge" 1998 The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

 

 

 

Contemporary landscape painter Emily Brown's work is centered in observation and emotional response to the natural world. Brown shies away from no aspect of the natural environment, and depictions of steaming compost heaps are as of much interest to the artist as leafy glades in the sunlight. However, Brown does not usually depict the figure, and this painting is rare in containing both the suggestion of human presence and in its also being obviously a self-portrait (we see the artist's hand and brush.) What is more typically Brown-like is the focus on the detailed flotsam and jetsam of the river's edge, on which the artist's shadow is fleetingly imprinted.

Brown has received numerous official accolades for her work; among other honors she has been awarded grants from the Pew Foundation, The Independence Foundation and the Leeway Foundation. Her work is in many major collections, including the permanent collections of the  Farnsworth Art Museum, the Michener Art Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This piece "At the River's Edge" is part of the Linda Lee Alter Art By Women Collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In fact, you can go see the piece in person, as it is hanging on the wall right now at PAFA in the exhibition The Female Gaze: Women Artists Making their World which opened yesterday (November 16, 2012) and which runs through April 7, 2013.