Jane Brown

Born Al Ahmadi, Kuwait, lives and works in Melbourne.

Jane Brown’s exquisitely composed landscapes and interiors are characterised by atmospheres of seduction and melancholy. Carefully observed scenes from around the world hold a distinct anthropological charge, exploring absence, chance, and the materiality of time. Every photograph has been meticulously hand printed, and deliberately composed, their timeframe indeterminable, as contemporary scenes are filtered through an analogue lens. Selected exhibitions include Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2013); Island of the Colourblind, Breenspace, Sydney (2013); CCP Declares: On the Nature of Things, Centre for Contemporary Photography (2012), Afterlife, Ballarat International Foto Biennale (2011), Australian Gothic, Edmund Pearce, Melbourne (2012), Monumental Effect, Death Be Kind, Melbourne (2011) and A Hopeless Taste of Eternity, Pigment Gallery (2009). Her work has featured in a number of publications including Derrida, Literature and War: Absence and the Chance of Meeting by Sean Gaston, Continuum (2009). In 2012 and 2013 her work was shortlisted for the Bowness Prize, Monash Gallery of Art.

Artist's CV

EDUCATION

1986–88  Bachelor of Arts, University of Melbourne
1994        Post-Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Management, RMIT University
1996–97  Bachelor of Fine Arts (Photography), Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2013
The Island of the Colourblind, BREENSPACE, Sydney, NSW, Australia

2012
Australian Gothic, Edmund Pearce Gallery, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

2011
Afterlife, Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Ballarat, VIC, Australia

2010
Monumental Effect, Death Be Kind Gallery at The Alderman, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

2009
A Hopeless Taste of Eternity, Pigment Gallery (now Edmund Pearce), Melbourne, VIC, Australia

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2013
Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
From light, forms: Jane Brown, Sarah Smuts-Kennedy, BREENSPACE, Sydney, NSW, Australia

2012
CCP Declares: On the Nature of Things
, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

2011
The Rest is Silence
, Death Be Kind Gallery, East Brunswick, VIC, Australia
The Small Art Show, Carbon Black, Prahran, VIC, Australia
New Photo, Subject Matter Art Space, Hawthorn, VIC, Australia

AWARDS
Finalist, 2012 and 2013 Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne


COLLECTIONS
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Victoria

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Michael Fitzgerald, ‘From light, forms’, Sydney Morning Herald, 12–13 October 2013
Sam Preston, 'Stillness and Calm at Breenspace', Broadsheet, 22 September 2013
Michael Fitzgerald, ‘Editors Choice’, Photofile, vol. 93, Spring/Summer 2013–14
Susan van Wyk, 'Melbourne Now countdown - day 33', National Gallery of Victoria blog, 20 October 2013
Interview on Canvas, FBi Radio, 22 September 2013, interview starts at 31:40 minutes
Sean Gaston, The Concept of World from Kant to Derrida, Rowman and Littlefield, 2013
Hugh Nichols, 'Much that is different from other lands', Timemachine Magazine, No. 8, Sydney, 2012
Marcus Bunyan, 'Melbourne’s Magnificent Eleven', ART BLART Blog, December 2012
Common Ground, Excerpt Magazine, December 2012
Scott Wark, 'Thing-ness and Photography', RealTime, vol. 111, Oct-Nov 2012
Dan Rule, CCP Declares on the Nature of Things, The Age, 18 August 2012
Jolanta Nowak, Documents, Encounters and Histories: CCP Declares, Centre for Contemporary Photography, 2012
The Rest is Silence, essays by HelenMcDonald, Christine Schmidt, Elvis Richardson, et al.Arts Victoria, 2012
Robert McFarlane, Redefining The Australian Landscape, Ozphoto Review Blog, April 2012
Marcus Bunyan, Jane Brown/Australian Gothic ART BLART Blog, May 2012
Simon Caterson, ‘Paint it Black’, The Weekend Australian Review, 6–7 August 2011
Monumental Effect, exhibition catalogue, edited by Elvis Richardson and Claire Lambe, 2010
Sean Gaston, Derrida, Literature and War: Absence and the chance of meeting, Continuum (cover), 2009

EXHIBITIONS