Jane Brown  

 

Born: Kuwait. Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia

 

Solo Exhibitions

2022 There’s a certain Slant of light with Jane Brown, Castlemaine Art Museum

2017 Black Ships, Riddoch Gallery, Mt Gambier, South Australia

2017 Sporting Country, Stills Gallery, Sydney

2017 Black Ships, Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Victoria

2016 Black Ships, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne                                                  

2016 The Paper Mill, Neospace, Melbourne

2015 Black Ships, Stills Gallery, Sydney

2013 Island of the Colourblind, Breenspace, Sydney

2012 Australian Gothic, Edmund Pearce Gallery, Melbourne 

2011 Afterlife, Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Victoria

2009 A Hopeless Taste of Eternity, Pigment Gallery, Melbourne

 

 

Selected Group Exhibitions

2020 From All Points of the Southern Sky: Photography from Australia and Oceania. Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona State College, Florida USA

2020 Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art

2019 Now You See Me: Visualising the Surveillance State, PhotoAccess Gallery, Canberra

2018 Unconscious Places: Photography and History, Grace Cossington Smith Gallery, New South Wales

2018  National Works on Paper Prize, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria

2018  The Art of Collecting, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne

2018  Nostalgia: it’s not what it used to be, Hawksbury Regional Gallery, New South Wales

2017  Melbourne Festival - An Unorthodox Flow of Images, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne

2017  Icons of Yarra, City of Yarra Council, Melbourne

2017  Festival of Photography, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

2017  Curtain Call, Stills Gallery, Sydney,

2016  The Art and Industry Festival and Billboard, The Substation, Newport

2016  Basil Sellers Art Prize, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

2016  CCP’s 30th Anniversary Fundraiser, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne 

2015  Toyota Altona 2015, A Photographic Essay, Toyota Headquarters and Factory

2015  Feast, Stills Gallery, Sydney

2014  The Sievers Project, Melbourne Art Fair

2014  The Sievers Project, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, 

2014  Khem, Strange Neighbour Gallery, Melbourne

2013  Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria

2013  Not Before Time, BREENSPACE, Sydney

2013  Obscura International Photography Festival, Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia

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

2011  The Rest is Silence, Death Be Kind Gallery, Melbourne 2011  The Small Art Show, Carbon Black, Melbourne

2011  New Photo, Subject Matter Art Space, Melbourne

2010  Monumental Effect, Death Be Kind Gallery, Melbourne 

 

 

Bibliography

2019  Abebe, Miryam.  “Das Treibhaus”, Sichtbar Art, 10 November (link)  

2019  Rope, Brian. “Now You See Me: Visualising the Surveillance State at PhotoAccess”, The Canberra Times, 28 November (link)  

2019  Pateman, Daniel. “Now You See Me: Visualising the Surveillance State”. This is tomorrow contemporary art magazine, 7 November (link)  

2018  Inglis, Alison; Mendelssohn, Joanna; De Lorenzo, Catherine; Speck, Catherine. Australian Art Exhibitions: Opening Our Eyes, Thames & Hudson, Melbourne, Victoria

2018  Isbel, Paul. “Review: 2018 National Works on Paper, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery”, Arts Hub (link) 

2018  West Brett, Donna. Unconscious Places: Photography and History, Exhibition Catalogue, GCS Gallery, Sydney (link)

2017  Coslovich, Gabriella. A Celebration in Photography, The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 March (link)

2017  Zwartz, Henry. Australia’s love of sport on display, The Canberra Times, 10 March 

2016  La Terra, Monique. Up and coming photographers from Australia – The Culture Trip, 30 December

(link)

2016  Haslem, Wendy. Black Ships catalogue essay, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum Research Library 2016  Doughty, Jacqueline, Basil Sellers Art Prize 5, Ian Potter Museum of Art

2016  Harmon, Steph. ‘Bob Dylan, high fashion and “human folly”: 30 years of Melbourne Photography,’ The Guardian, 21 July (link)

2015  Wong, Ken. Toyota: A Photographic Essay, exhibition catalogue

2015  Murray, Phip. ‘Jane Brown: Light and Darkness,’ Art Collector, Issue 72, April–June (link)

2015  Frost, Andrew. ‘Black Ships/Small Worlds’, The Art Life, 30 March (link)

2014  Rainforth, Dylan. ‘Lens on Sievers’, The Age, 15 July 

2014  Coote, Gavin. ‘Open-air museum: images capture industrial decline of Broken Hill,ABC, 19 June 

2014  Stieven-Taylor, Alison.  ‘Australia: The Sievers Project,’ L’Oeil de la Photographie, June 

2014  Stephens, Andrew. ‘Witness to a lost time’, The Age, 7 June (link)

2014  Cass, Naomi and McFarlane, Kyla. ‘The Sievers Project / exhibition catalogue’, Centre for Contemporary Photograpy (link)

2014  Edgar, Ray. ‘Past Master: The Sievers Project.’ Art Guide, May /June

2014  Wolifson, Chloe. Art and Australia Vol 50 No 3 Summer (link)

2014  Allen, Christopher. ‘National Gallery of Victoria becomes a crowded house with Melbourne Now,’ The Australian Newspaper, 18 January  

2013  Duke, Hannah. ‘Melbourne Now Brings Contemporary Art to the City’s Streets’ Untapped Cities

(link)

2013  Champtaloup, Julia. “Keeping it local Melbourne’ A Magazine, November 

2013  National Gallery Victoria. Melbourne Now, Exhibition Catalogue, NGV

2013  Fitzgerald, Michael. ‘From light, forms’, Sydney Morning Herald, 12-13 October 

2013  Britton, Kate. ‘Jane Brown and Sarah Smuts-Kennedy From Light Forms’ Raven, 26 September

(link)

2013  Preston, Sam. ‘Stillness and Calm at Breenspace’, Broadsheet, 22 September (link)

2013  Susan van Wyk. ‘Melbourne Now countdown - Day 33', National Gallery of Victoria blog, 20 October 

2013  Fitzgerald, Michael. ‘Editor’s Choice: Through the looking glass: From the 1970s to now  Photofile: vol. 93

2013  Nichols, Hugh. ‘Much that is different from other lands’, Timemachine Magazine, No. 8, Sydney

2012  Wark, Scott. ‘Thing-ness and Photography’, REALTIME, vol. 111, Oct-Nov

2012  Rule, Dan. CCP Declares on the Nature of Things, The Age, 18 August 

2012  Nowak, Jolanta. ‘Documents, Encounters and Histories,’ catalogue essay, CCP Declares: On the Nature of Things, Centre for Contemporary Photography (link)

2012  Helen McDonald. Christine Schmidt, Elvis Richardson, et al. The Rest is Silence, Arts Victoria

2012  McFarlane, Robert. ‘Redefining the Australian Landscape’, Ozphoto Review Blog, April 

2011  Caterson, Simon. ‘Paint it Black', The Weekend Australian Review, August 6-7 (link)

2009  Gaston, Sean. Derrida, Literature and War: Absence and the chance of meeting, Continuum

 

 

Awards and Commissions

2020  Finalist, Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art

2018  National Works on Paper. Finalist, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery 

2016  Basil Sellers Art Prize, Finalist. Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

2016  City of Yarra Small Projects

2015  Toyota Factory Commission

2015  Finalist, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award

2014  The Sievers Project, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne

2014  Art and Australia / Credit Suisse Contemporary Art Award,

2013  Finalist, Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art

2012  Finalist, Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art

  

 

Lectures/talks and Interviews

2017  Artist interview: Art Thursday 30th March 2017 – 89.7 Eastside FM, Sydney (link) 

2016  Novum composed by Kitty Xiao, music inspired by Bushfire Landscape, Move Records. (link to MP3)

2016  Interview, Jane Brown: Basil Sellers Art Prize finalist 5, Ian Potter Museum of Art (link to YouTube)

2016  Guest Lecturer – Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Photography Studies College (also 2015 and 2014)

2016 Art and Industry Festival, panel discussion – (link)

2015  Alchemists Masterclass for artists, School of Art, Australian National University and the National Gallery of Art, Canberra (link)

2015  Public lecture, Inspiration by Design: Word and Image from the Victoria and Albert Museum - Focus on Photography, State Library of Victoria.

2015  Slow Canoe Live Journal – Performance, Fitzroy, Victoria 

2014  Centre for Contemporary Photography, Talking Sievers - Professor Helen Ennis, Jane Brown and Therese Keogh, 16 July  2014  Jane Brown – The Sievers Project Artists Interviews from the CCP, September (link to VIMEO)

2013  Interview on Canvas, FBi Radio, 22 September (link to MP3)

 

2013  Melbourne Now Floor Talk, National Gallery of Victoria

2013  Bowness Prize Exhibition Floor Talk, Monash Gallery of Art, Victoria

 

 

Collections

 

National Gallery of Victoria

Art Gallery of New South Wales

Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne

Horsham Regional Art Gallery

 

 

Education

 

Bachelor of Arts, University of 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. The era is indeterminable, as Brown’s contemporary scenes are filtered through an analogue lens.  Stills Gallery, Sydney, Australia, 2017

  

 

‘Brown was one of eight artists I curated into the group exhibition CCP Declares: On the Nature of Things, held at the Centre for Contemporary Photography. This was a declarative exhibition highlighting bodies of work by artists I considered to be key practitioners in contemporary photography and video practice in Australia today. Hand printed with exceptional skill in her own darkroom, her generally small-scaled, gelatin silver photographs include diverse subjects taken in Australia and abroad. Whilst Brown is technically adept, she is also conceptually rigorous and brings an eccentric and elegiac eye to her subjects. Her work engages with the history of photography, the melancholy of experience, the emotional resonance of place, photographic narrative as well as literary influences, particularly the work of W.G. Sebald. Brown has been consistently building these interests over the past few years and will, I believe, go from strength to strength. She is also adventurous – The Sievers Project saw her accessing sensitive mining sites at Broken Hill and a former paper mill in Melbourne, experimenting with scale and toning.’ - Kyla McFarlane – Curator, Australian Art, Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane – Art Collector Magazine, 2015) S

 

‘Small and gloriously hand-printed, Jane Brown’s work champions the craft values of analogue photography coupled with her incisive and enquiring eye. She finds the poetic within contemporary, retro and historic sites rendering light, architecture and time with beauty and miraculous attention to the qualities of black and white photography’. -Naomi Cass, Director, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne  - The Guardian Newspaper, July 2016

 

 

Selected links

 

http://www.stillsgallery.com.au/artists/brown/index.php?obj_id=series&nav=2  

https://www.neospace.com.au/papermill

http://documentor.com.au/portfolio/jane-brown-black-ships/

http://www.photography-now.com/artist/jane-brown

http://www.janebrownphotography.com