CECILY BROWN (American, born 1969) Father of the Bride, 1999 oil on canvas, 100 x 110" Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Sarah Norton Goodyear Fund, 1999.

Cecily Brown is one of a group of young English artists currently making a splash on the international art scene. Born in London in 1970, she dropped out of high school at the age of 16 to study art, eventually graduating from the Slade School of Art in London in 1993. The following year she moved to Manhattan where she lives and works today.

Brown's paintings first came to the attention of the New York art world when she exhibited what she called her “bunny gang rape” paintings in a Manhattan gallery in 1997. Notable collectors including, Charles Saatchi and Agnes Gund, were quick to acquire these works and Brown's career was launched.

This painting is from a later series in which fragmented body parts have been totally consumed by the painterly surface. These paintings have been described by art critic Roberta Smith as “… an attempt to juice up and feminize the shop worn vocabulary of abstract expressionism.” The titles that Brown chooses are often taken from Hollywood movies. In this case, the title is taken from the 1950 classic, Father of the Bride. References to brides, the sexually-charged notion of a new marriage, and the suggestions of body parts combine to evoke layers of meaning in this exuberantly painted gestural abstraction. As the artist describes it: “I'm trying to be in a space between abstraction and figuration.”

- Jennifer Bayles, Educator for Special Projects