Sophy Brown | Colorado
“Painting for me is a way of responding to the world as I experience it. It is an attempt to give form to an internal life, materialize thoughts and emotions. My work has been populated with horses for over 20 years. I have spent a good deal of time around them, watching, and I believe there is all emotional life to see there. Horses are sensitive, instinctive and physical. They react directly and their inner reality is declared instantaneously through posture, demeanor and physical attitude. Here we can recognize our common nature and see in them a manifestation of what in us is often hidden and complicated.
“Coming to America in 1987 I went to the University of Michigan to study for an MFA in painting. I had completed my BFA at Goldsmiths College of London University. After tasting both the east and west coasts, I found home in Colorado where a deep attachment to the horse remains part of contemporary culture, beyond its practical past. Maybe that is because they speak to us not only on an intellectual level but a visceral one and remind us of our own animal skin.“