04/03/09 Glenn Brown Retrospective at Tate Liverpool.





"Greatest painter of a generation". I had to see for myself as such a label always makes me suspicious.



The first artwork I encounter is titled "The Riches of the Poor" and is painted in the style of Auerbach whom Brown has repeatedly copied in style. It shows a figure emblazoning the frame with a halo glowing above, as if some godly saint. Saint Francis of Assisi perhaps, referring to the title. It is painstakingly well painted, in fact it may be too well painted for my liking. I like to see the paint still bubbling away like lava on the surface, as if the painter has applied the last brushstroke like war paint. However there is no evidence of a brushstroke on the canvas, it has all the footprints of a copy which would be what Brown is trying to convey.
Another painting stops me for a moment, 'Tragic Conversion of Salvador Dali". A floating asteroid, another world, Dali's own world just for him, or better a floating tomb of Dali. Again the paint is applied to a french polisher's finish, with all the colours of a dulux colour chart arranged by Chuck Close, interweaving threads of these colour play with your vision, reminding me of pointillism. Only having scratched the surface of the show, I start to wonder how long it took Glenn Brown to do all these. Including the aforementioned paintings there are about ten fairly big artworks in my peripheral vision yet to be scrutinised. The swirling, swishiness of 'The Aesthetic Pool' absorbs you in, into the green and brown licks of colour like mint flavoured ice cream, convincing enough you can almost taste it. The depth of the painting invites you to come closer, you are hesitant and excited at the same time,so much so it confuses you.
As well as the homage to Auerbach and Dali, some titles are referencing songs and albums, such as 'New Dawn Fades', a fantastic Joy Division song, with colours of green and jade smeared with an in out focus surrounding a figure (which is represented in a further two paintings of similar size) looking rather uncannily like an imposter imitating the dead fly dance pioneered by Curtis himself.
As well as the paintings there are also interesting sculptures made and smeared together with (left over?) oil paint. Thorny, scaly, hard and encrusted paint thickly applied and sculpted like a komodo dragon or a thorny devil. Twisted, chewed, licked and slurped into shape, caked, thick harlequin plaques coming to life. Forget the paintings, I found these intricate forms far more exciting, in particular a small Auerbach head lying at an angle on the floor of the gallery space.

Overall the exhibition was a success from an elitist painter's (of which I'm not, just stepping out my non subjective skin for a moment) point of view, perfectly painted and crafted, but to my own feelings and thoughts swimming around my gut and head, it was all too similar in approach but with some interesting subject matter and references to music, akin to my own collection. The crusty oil paint sculptures were the highlight for me, more so his actual painting table, the years of blood, sweat and tears toil with the thought, like a scaly skin disorder, the trauma, moved, scraped and manoeuvred to the edge, this crest of a wave, this sickly sweet growth of colour, crawling back up to be at the creators focal point.