Lorna Brown

Lorna Brown (born 1958) is a Canadian artist, curator and writer. Her work focuses on public space, social phenomena such as boredom, and institutional structures and systems.

Background

Lorna Brown was born in Oxbow, Saskatchewan, Canada. She started exhibiting her work in 1984. Brown taught studio and critical studies which includes Art, Design and Media history, humanities, and social science courses at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design and Simon Fraser University's School for Contemporary Arts from 1989-1999.^[1] From 1999-2004, Brown was the Director and Curator of Artspeak, one of many Canadian artist-run centres in Vancouver, B.C. and is currently the Associate Director/Curator at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia.

Exhibitions

• Carets, strike-outs, underlines, circles and dots, 2014, Publication Studio.^[2]
• As One Does, Beside Yourself, 2014, AHVA Gallery, University of British Columbia, Vancouver^[3]
• Threshold/Cont. 2009, Belkin Gallery & University of British Columbia.^[4]
• The Structure of Boredom (after Oden), The Chatter of Culture, 2007, Artspeak, Vancouver^[5]
• Cleave, 1999,Dazibao, Montreal^[6]
• Once Removed, 1992, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver^[7]
• Reading, 1990, Artspeak,Vancouver, Photographer's Gallery, Saskatoon, Belkin Satellite, Vancouver
• Measure, 1990, Evoking Place, Photographer's Gallery, Saskatoon, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal, Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton^[8]

Curatorial

Lorna Brown has been an independent curator since 2004. Digital Natives a public art project with Other Sights for Artists' Projects, a non-profit arts organization in Vancouver, B.C. was commissioned by the City of Vancouver work for the city's 125th anniversary. Digital Natives utilized an electronic billboard located on Skwxwú7mesh territory and visible from Burrard Bridge to share a curated series of Twitter messages in English and Skwxwú7mesh.^[9][10]

Writing

Lorna Brown contributes essays, reviews, and interviews to publications such as Fillip^[11] and The Capilano Review.^[12]

Her writing also appears in exhibition catalogues, journals and books.

• Supplement: Critical and Bibliographic Review. 2009.Montreal Artexte Editions.^[13]
• Ethics of Luxury: Materialism and Imagination, Jeanne Randolph, Ihor Holubizky and Anthony Kiendl, Toronto, YYZ Books, and Winnipeg, Plug In Editions, 2007.
• Detained by the Camera, Catalogue Essay: “Don Gill’s D’Arcy Island”, Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge, Alta.
• Directional Language, Off Printing: Situating Publishing Practices in Artist Run Centres, Conference Proceedings, RCAAQ, Quebec, 2005.
• Public Ideals, Prefix Photo 9, May 2004.
• Unfinished Business, The Rain Review of Books, Issue 4:2, Summer Autumn 2006, Vancouver.

Collections

• National Gallery of Ottawa ^[14]
• Surrey Art Gallery (Searchable through artefacts Canada national database)^[15]
• Canada Council for the Arts - Art Bank (searchable through the Art Bank database)^[16]
• British Columbia Arts Council (collection not searchable online)

Awards and Honours

• Canada Council for the Arts Paris Studio Award, 2000 (searchable in their database)^[17]
• Recipient of the Vancouver Institute for the Visual Arts, 1996^[18]

Reviews

• Robin Laurence, Lorna Brown captures a dying language with Carets, strike-outs, underlines and dots. Georgia Straight. September 2, 2014.^[19]
• Digital Natives, edited by Lorna Brown and Clint Burnham. Review by Andrew Pel. C Magazine, International Contemporary Art. Winter 2012/13^[20]
• Threshold/Cont. esse, 2009.^[21]
• Robin Laurence, of small gear and big titles. Georgia Straight, September 15–20, 2005.
• Robin Laurence, Feminist art provides more than a flashback. Georgia Straight. March 18, 2004.
• Sarah Milroy, Women of the World Unite, Saturday, November 7, 1998. Globe and Mail.
• Robin Laurence, Exploring the plight of women in urban settings. Weekend Sun, January 27, 1996.
• Robin Laurence, Not Necessarily the best of '94. Saturday Review, The Weekend Sun, Sunday, December 31, 1994.
• Robin Laurence, Fresh, Forceful works explore creation of identity. The Weekend Sun, Saturday, March 5, 1993.
• Ann Rosenberg, Wiles and will of women. The Vancouver Sun, December 12, 1992.
• Ann Rosenberg, Lifting the veil on a sexual mystery. The Vancouver Sun, Saturday, February 8, 1992.

References