Bio

Glenn Brown (born 1966 in Hexham, Northumberland) is a British artist. He is known for the use of art historical references in his paintings. Starting with reproductions from other artist’s works, Glenn Brown transforms the appropriated image by changing its colour, position and size. His grotesque yet fascinating figures appear to be painted with thick impasto, but are actually executed through the application of thin, swirling brushstrokes which create the illusion of almost photographically flat surfaces.
His work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions including Domaine de Kerguéhennec, Centre d’Art Contemporain, France (2000); Serpentine Gallery, London (2004); Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (2008); Tate Liverpool, England (2009), which travelled to the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin and Ludwig Múzeum, Budapest; and numerous group exhibitions including The Saatchi Gallery (1995); Centre Georges Pompidou (2002); Venice Biennale, Italian Pavilion, (2003); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2005); Gwangju Biennale, Korea (2010), and Kunsthalle, Vienna (2011). His work is represented by Gagosian Gallery in New York and London, Patrick Painter Gallery in Los Angeles and Galerie Max Hetzler in Berlin.
Brown, who lives and works in London, was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2000. There was some controversy over his exhibition at Tate Britain for the Turner Prize, as one of the paintings was closely based on the science-fiction illustration "Double Star" produced in 1973 by the artist Tony Roberts. In 2009, Brown claimed that "to make something up from scratch is nonsensical. Images are a language. It‘s impossible to make a painting that is not borrowed — even the images in your dreams refer to reality."