Coady Brown: Rabid Heart
OPENING RECEPTION SATURDAY APRIL 8TH, 6–8PM
Shulamit Nazarian is pleased to announce Rabid Heart, an exhibition by Philadelphia-based artist Coady Brown. This exhibition marks the artist’s second solo show with the gallery, on view from April 8 through May 13, 2023.
Coady Brown’s paintings are grounded in a careful awareness of the politics inherent to depicting feminine and androgynous figures. Committed to methods of representation that shield figures from the binds of voyeurism and over-determination, the paintings presented in Rabid Heart hone the artist’s long-standing commitment to depicting wholly autonomous figures, cultivating and preserving an interior psychology impermeable to the viewer and artist alike. Rabid Heart celebrates the uninhibited passion, verve, and power these figures retain, regardless of those watching.
Brown’s paintings examine how groups, couples, and solitary figures navigate self-presentation in private and public life. Often situated within the drama and darkness of nightlife, Brown’s paintings explore the nuances of moving through the world in a feminized body. Figures are often compressed into tightly framed, intimate spaces that expose the subtle complexities of our interpersonal connections and relationships.
Drawing from varied source material—including canonical portraiture, art history, fashion, film, and everyday experiences—Brown orchestrates psychologically charged environments that pulse with a sense of mystery and wonder. Through attention to lighting, vibrant clothing, and high-contrast colors, Brown’s figures’ inscrutable expressions hint at an unknowable and autonomous selfhood, conjuring a precise instant within a specific and stylized world.
Coady Brown (b. 1990, lives and works in Philadelphia, PA) is a painter from Baltimore, MD. She received her MFA from Yale University in 2016, and her BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in 2012. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally with Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles, CA; Stems Gallery, Brussels, Belgium; 1969 Gallery, New York, NY; Taymour Grahne, London, England; and Francois Ghebaly, New York, NY; among others. She is the recipient of several fellowships and residencies including Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, ME; The Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA; Fountainhead, Miami, FL; Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT; and the Yale/Norfolk School of Art, Norfolk, CT. Her work has been written about in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Juxtapoz, Variable West, and New American Painting.
Brown’s works are in the permanent collections of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL, the Columbus Museum of Art, OH, and the X Museum, Beijing, China.
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