How do you make painting sexy?
The first step is moving from London to NYC. Or at least that’s what Cecily Brown did back in 1994, when London was obsessed with installation art.
Cecily wanted to show that painting could be just as radical. Her canvases were erotic and electric.
By the millennium she was posing with them for magazine spreads.
The photos were fun and intentionally provocative, like her paintings.
Puce Moment, 1997
High Society, 1998
Does most of your work have a sexual reference?
Yes it does.
Sex is everywhere in popular culture and art history, so why ignore it?
In 2013, Cecily based a series of paintings on Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland album cover.
And in 2021, she painted a new take on the nude in the historic – and traditional – Courtauld Gallery.
In her own way, Cecily made painting sexy again – bringing rock ‘n’ roll flair to Abstract Expressionism.
The Fugitive Kind, 2000
Teenage Wildlife, 2003
