ECUAD AWARD WINNER VANESSA BROWN

CENTAUR, 2013
steel, paint

Vanessa Brown is this year's recipient of the Jake C. Kerr Chancellor's Award in Fine Arts.

Her interest lies in the exploration of semiotic flips, utilizing shapes to examine the meaning of the concept and relations behind the image.  In this particular installed series at the gallery, Vanessa ponders the question: can a circle can be related to all other forms of a similar shape, such as the moon, bowls, globes etc.  In her inquiry, she works with "sheet steel — cutting it out, interlocking planes through simple joinery, using paint to unearth its strange papery qualities.  Shapes that begin mute develop into beings, objects, figures, posture. The figuration in Centaur is so present that one might describe it as 'turning' or 'looking back.'"