Julian Brown, 'MATMA Monochrome'

Julian Brown’s work balances vulnerability and abstraction. His work references the Polish folk art introduced to him by his mother; the flat, organic forms and bright colours figurations of childhood memories. These hard-edged elements are paired with gestural marks which often develop into motifs: accidents that are purposeful and repeated. His work walks a tightrope between chaos and structure, a carnival of colour and form interspersed with points of serenity. He begins his paintings, as many abstract painters do, with a grid. The process of painting, an organic and instinctive one, will intercept and break down this skeleton of order, Brown saying ‘I both work with grids and try to escape from them.’ As the painting develops, with layers of colour and relationships of form, the further away from the grid they get, becoming a landscape of motifs, luminous colours, shape and gesture.