Betty Brown: Tif Sigrids, Georgia

Tif Sigfrids is overjoyed to announce a solo exhibition of paintings by Betty Brown. She lived in the country near Gainesville, GA, and started painting in the 1980s, helping her husband, the renowned artist Tubby Brown. Her style is defined by clarity and a no-nonsense efficiency; her vivid depictions of her small town allow us to travel through her canvases. A packed ballfield, the town boat launch, a farm down a dusty road, a wide-eyed woman rocking in her chair beside a grand fireplace, and an equally wide-eyed dog. Logically we know these painted environments are an attempt to hold on to a fleeting moment, but there is such a sense of awe, of harmony with the environment, that the pictures almost seem to be playing out in real-time.

As outsiders to this idyllic world, Brown employees a "bird's-eye," elevated perspective, everything melting into a single straight and stacked plane of existence. There is a give and take, a wavering between flatness and illusionistic depth. The paintings are a humble celebration of the town's mechanics, the everyday acts that people come together. The blocky figures themselves are stiffly posed, tall and straight, always presented head-to-toe. Her friends and neighbors are reduced to minimal facial features, save for being marked by their bulbous eyes. Their individuality is delivered via their relationships with each other and the big, open spaces they inhabit.

Brown's world is a simple palette, straight from the tube: green, blue, pinks and purples, black, and brown, all with a generously loaded brush. It's always airy, light-smacked, but never artificial. Painting might seem like a solitary endeavor, but in her paintings, Brown was never alone. As more of her work reaches new eyes, more and more of us indulge in these two-dimensional escape hatches. We invite you to join us in the sun, infectiously together forever.

-Daniel Fuller