DOUG BRIN

THE ARTIST'S PROFILE

2010-11-24T11:05:00.000-08:00

Keep Your Head Up (Personal Journal Entry) 2003

The Latest From Robert Rauschenberg 1999

41"x 32"

Douglas Brin is a New York based artist who creates thought-inspiring works out of some very unlikely materials. His childhood included extensive stints as publicity and print fashion model; exposed to the worlds of advertising, live television, and then-popular culture. He brings these formularized experiences to his art in the homage of luminary screen legends, political figures and other notable personalities. Brin applies a high degree of technical skill and subtle craftsmanship to his work, extensively accelerated by his keen sense of composition, whimsy and input of both irony and humor. An instinctive educator, archivist, and historian, Brin catalogs and explores myriad contemporary social and political issues through his rigorously illuminating relief paintings, sculpture and collages.

Little Match Girl 1986
9 1/2" x 9"

Brin uses a satisfying and visually textured hybrid of non-traditional materials in conjunction with dynamic contemporary methods exemplified by meticulous patterned collages, paintings, constructions, to provoke contemplation through reference and imagery. He relishes and flourishes in process art and implores us to consider and reconsider what we hold as true and certain. The resulting compositions, gently and cleverly exposes and expands our point-of-reference on the condition of contemporary life.

Block Gallery 1991

7"wx7"dx81/2"h

Brin’s work borders on—but in the final analysis barely hangs back from--Expressionist Abstract Art. His subjects demonstrate a harmonious blend of rich color or thick relief crosshatched texture. His expressive visual landscape incorporates a lucid network of colors and an extensive fusion of textures.

To quote the artist: “My visual vocabulary is actually an amalgamation and commentary on what I hope is an evocative yet original thought process. I’m also determined to rescue and utilize little, frequently-neglected, recognizable objects that--when amalgamated-- are far more than the sum of their parts, I'm also determined to make coherent sense of the world through its smallest yet tantalizing elements. This personal visual universe reflects on a random and frequently nonsensical world that can seem disjointed and out-of-order. I try to compose with random pieces of material to make sense of what I visualize between the cracks and puzzlements. I’m attempting to reorder and organize the confusing little parts that compose what I perceive as our finite and often frustrating existence.”

Cloud Casino 1999
6" x 8"

To view a Douglas Brin collage or construction is to inhabit a world that commemorates the irony and wonder of the human ego, beckoning the viewer to take in the diverse panorama of his sensitivities and subjects. Here, fading newspaper cuttings of historical events, photographs of politicians, presidents, movie stars, curious personalities and past luminaries, vintage signage, dated commercial branding and advertising designs are captured and archived within glass and thick elaborate framing as color confidently intersect with form, content and composition.

Blake, where are you? 2006
24" x 291/2"

Brin’s oeuvre entails a plethora of ephemera within intricate constructions of visually sizable bric-a-brac and objects that are laid on thickly on the periphery of framed collage; at times the paint is minimal and executed with recognizable brushstrokes that add to a sense of motion, intention and vitality.

These creations buzz with life, creating a representation of hue and movement that capture the life essence of the personalities he seeks to represent caricature.

Pinochet Flag 1990
13 1/2" x 17 1/2"

Brin began his career as a traditional painter. This background evolved into the basis for his life’s work, where his technique mirrors the traditional artistic expressions of post-modern art, readily recognizable and reflective of the work of many of today’s contemporary Western masters. In his pieces, painting is a contributory element rather than a dominant feature.

Ladies With Umbrella Hats 1985

46"x23"

He creates compositions and textures that give his works an illustrative and provocative quality, and provide numerous and diverse elements of nostalgic and creative reference. His style and wide body of historical and interpretive conceptual thought incorporates Pop Art qualities. These, in turn, provide a playfulness and whimsicality to everyday-life objects. These influences are happily exhibited and enhanced by his balanced sense of composition and meticulous harmony, where objects are carefully arranged to convey a sense of stimulation and poise. But there is vitality here as well, that renders his work anything but traditional. He is naturally and freely able to transform this energy and spirit into a contemporary expression that is his own and ultimately original.

Alpha Beta Chi 1994
15" x 17 1/2"

Douglas Brin also works in distinct mediums outside of collage, three-dimensional construction and painting, most notably as an ongoing, unique and illustrative diarist with a continuous, forty-year body of annual journals that comprise a virtual history of our times. This unprecedented accumulation of meticulous and highly detailed work infuses drawing, collage, colored pencil and a remarkable use of contrasting elementary color. The journals, which are both enthralling and encyclopedic, showcase an intense personal introspection, a lively appreciation for contemporary history and literature, and a detailed dose of daily self-scrutiny, humor and irony.

At The Museum 2001

25"x24"

These annual journals, some forty-odd strong, fastidiously and scrupulously maintained for over four decades make up possibly the most substantial and selective of Brin’s oeuvre. They reflect on an ordinary world that he attempts to infuse with the curious and extraordinary and contain a delightful, engaging, and frequently surprising plethora of mysteries, secrets and self revelation, and—in what are by now an accumulation of thousands of visual images and possibly millions of words — provide elements and experiences that can be most subtle and intriguing. These visual messages and memories frequently come forward in place of what may at first be seen as mundane and ordinary.

Profile By King Molapo.

Artist Interview

2010-11-24T10:49:00.000-08:00

by King Molapo

K.M: How does your work expose and reflect on the nuanced condition of contemporary life?

D.B: It features an enormous number of elements that encompasses the present and future, but most especially, the past. I’m always fixated by my foibles, interests, personal proclivities and disappointments. The present is a split second, the future an unknown, thus I believe that the past constitutes the overwhelming percentage of our personal histories. I’m attached to objects and concepts that dredge up these past sensibilities. My work is, in effect, a series of personal dreamscapes. I still want to believe that life has a mystery, and I try to create works that resonate with this feeling.

Guinness Block Of World Records 2010
4"w x 4"d x 2/12"h

K.M: Do you believe that your pieces tease out the beauty in the complex, convoluted troubles that plague our lives, while simultaneously reminding us of the variety of rich pleasures that life offers?

D.B: My work comes out of my own personal history and fantasies. Life has often constituted its share of ongoing personal disappointments– with the notable exception of my children—so I’ve been tempted to enhance both its possibilities and promise. Unfortunately, I’m often a pessimist, and skeptical of this bounty of possibilities.

Susan Hayward Altarpiece 2010
16"w x63/4"d x 8"h

K.M: What are your thoughts on fame and stardom?

D.B: I want recognition and yet the words fame and stardom seem somewhat superficial to me. I would greatly enjoy the admiration and respect of the literate and cognoscenti. I’m neither a Norman Rockwell or a Peter Max, thus their sort of fame and popularity is closed to me.

Movie Boyz Of 1951 2002
20" x 16"

K.M: How does your art encourage people from quick takes on issues, or to think about social matters in both greater depth, and more systematically?

D.B: I consider myself to be very political, and socially acute and aware. I believe that if people concentrate and allow the concepts in my pieces to soak in, the work may contain a propensity to make them stretch their thought processes, and consider the less-than-obvious. I’m an enemy of commercialization and cliché.

Around The World In 80 Daze 1999

17" x 22"

K .M: How does your experience as an educator come into play?

D.B: My teaching experience gradually and grudgingly attuned me to the needs of children and the special and more direct way they think. Children are often brutally straightforward, unfettered and refreshingly innocent. Then again, they can also be primitive, withholding and obtuse. I often try to second-guess them, but that frequently doesn’t work if you are not genuinely in sync with their individual needs.

Robert Taylor Quo Vadis 2005/2009
13"x 14"

K.M: Art has been a vital part of our collective social conscience since the earliest beginnings of human history – how does your art encourage thoughtful civil discourse?

D.B: Amidst the jumbled detritus of what passes as human civilization today, I’m trying to distill and decipher and edit its many elements. I’m attempting to make some sense out of this often perplexing world. If I can intrigue and open up the minds of even a small fraction of observers viewing my work, I would consider it a success. The impremitur of a major museum, gallery, curator, or media source is unavoidably, undeniably and immeasurably significant towards this end.

She Loves You, Yeah Yeah Yeah 2002
12 1/2" x 10"

K.M: In addition to being a working artist, you facilitate and plan current events discussion sessions with seniors citizens at five different venues each week. Are your socio-political dialogues an attempt at this civil discourse? Do your journals take note of these events?

D.B: On the whole, older people are inclined--and frequently have more free time--to ruminate on and discuss important issues. Often their contributions extend and might even revise my own political and social thinking. My journals are of considerable value in helping me to reflect and refine on the daily experiences that might otherwise pass by too rapidly and confusingly for initial examination and analysis. Also, by extensively quoting books and periodicals I’m reading, I can fold in the thought processes and viewpoints of many brilliant and original minds in addition to my own.

Imperial Cheddar Club Cheese 2010
4"w x4"d x 2"h

K.M: Describe to me the intensity of your thoughts while creating your work. Where do you draw your inspiration?

D.B: I happen to be a person who is intrigued by many, many things. I have a lot of intellectual interests and esoteric curiosity. These include history, photography, film and theater and very much everything political. I’m interested in people and what makes them tick. The thing about my work is that it fuses my inthusiasms and personality: my literary side and my visual side. The journals, that most truly reflect this fusion, are the spine of my life. There is also that part of me that is trying to make sense of a world that can seem hostile, random and doesn’t make sense. In my visual art, I attempt to compose with a broad range of materials and textures to create a new whole and reorder and organize the confusing little parts that constitute our veritable existence. Ninety-nine percent of this world confuses and puzzles me and I’m trying to gain a foothold over it.

New Sistine Chapel 2010
34" x 27"

K.M: What do you want your work to present the viewer with?

D.B: I want the viewer to think. I want to extend the boundaries of their conceptual world. I want members of this audience to escape the little box so many of us are confined in. I’m not a classically-trained traditional artist or a conventional illustrator, and yet I have numerous representational ambitions. My thought processes possibly lie about exactly mid-way between representational and abstract oeuvres. I’m trying to convey original ideas and feelings, but at the same time I want to infuse color, composition and sensibilities that might grab the viewer by the neck and shake them up a little. I want my audience to be more comfortable with unconventionality, and go a little further out on a limb as I have.

Braun Clock 2008
7" x 7"

K.M: How do you explain your visual vocabulary?

D.B: It is largely an amalgamation of my thought processes. I’m also determined to rescue and utilize little, largely unrecognizable objects that--when put together--are far more than the sum of their parts. Unfortunately, sometimes my versatility and wide net can diffuse focus--my thinking can tend to be a tangential nuisance. I may expect too much of my viewers, especially in light of the fact that even some of the brightest and most successful people are somewhat limited and intimidated by art; lacking the conviction and courage of their own judgment. My work may be a little too intense and diverse for their comfort zone. It is also undeniable that for the overwhelming majority of viewers, fine art must carry that all-important imprimatur of some heavy-hitting institution like a museum, a major established commercial gallery, or a media powerhouse like The New York Times. Unfortunately for me, I’ve never gained this magnitude of recognition and thus must labor under a substantial degree of obscurity and minimal appreciation.

Working Clock 2008
6/34" x 6/34"

The Journals

2006-10-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

Doug Brin, age 26, 1973

Doug Brin has kept these continuous, ongoing journals that include personal observation and analysis plus extended excerpts from periodicals and literature since the age of 22. Over forty years later--these journals, by now comprise a unique history of our times. This annual series of datebook-size volumes make up a compulsive, obsessive format of illustration and collage like no other. (click on images to enlarge)

Comedy And Tragedy (Journal entry, 2002)

Madame Butterfly (1999)

July (2002)

Pard (1998)

The Don Is Done (2004)

The Father Of Our Country (1999)

Running Man (1998)

U.F.O. (1999)

Tornado (1998)

Susan Hayward (2002)

The Outriders (1998)

Alain Delon And Monica Vitti (1998)

Corporate Reptile (2002)

9.11: It Can Happen Here (2001)

Eyelash (2006)

Creature #27 (2005)

Keep Your Head Up (2003)

New Year (title page, 2007)

What Disputed Ballots? (2000)

Centaur (2005)

Simone And The Kitchen Towel (2006)

Tyrone Power (2005)

Telephone Chicken (2001)

Decembre (1997)

Juin Space Man (2005)

Lord & Taylor (2003)

Watching Al Gore (2000)

Janvier Face (2000)

Feb Head (2000)

Mars Creature (2003)

Circles Of Avril (2003)

Life Is Beautiful (2005)

Queen Of Hearts/Blackout (2004)

It Came From Outter Space (1997)

Words, Words, Words (2003)

We Love You, Frank Perdue (2003)

April & Me (journal entry, 1997)