Rogan Brown — ART PRESENCE

Which 3 words best define how you would like your art to be perceived?

VISCERAL / HYPNOTIC / SUMPTUOUS

What creative challenge have you faced and overcome that has transformed your art practice?

As a sculptor the most important creative challenge I face is technical: how to take sheets of paper and transform them into fragile, intricately cut layers that seemingly float one on top of the other to create three dimensional objects. Only by experimenting over many years with different structural techniques and materials have I succeeded at doing this. That struggle with the materiality of my chosen medium has transformed my practice and I continue to experiment and push the technique to its limits.

What tools do you use as part of the preliminary stages of your process?

iPad, internet, paper and pencil. Everything starts with research, long hours pouring through the vast database of images that the net allows us access to, mostly scientific imagery, sketching as I go the forms and patterns and structures that may be of use later.

How do you usually start an art session - any habits or rituals ?

I always start the day by drawing. I make hundreds of detailed, intricate drawings, some that take weeks to complete and so I gnaw away at them bit by bit everyday.

How do you deal with doubts and fears?

With difficulty. I think the essence of being an artist is wrestling with self-doubt, fear, cynicism and negative thoughts but ultimately overcoming them because the creative urge is stronger. Some days it’s easy, others it’s like hand to hand combat with the devil. The work I do develops slowly and demands a phenomenal amount of time and labour before I know whether it’s going to work or not; sometimes it doesn’t....and that fear is constantly present.

With which intentions do you infuse your art making?

For me the responsibility of the visual artist is to help people open their eyes, look and see. That may seem very simple, perhaps even simplistic, but it is neither. Habit, routine and fatigue deaden our will to look and our ability to see. The artist needs to shake us out of our torpor, snap us out of our habits and make us see the familiar world in a new, fresh and vibrant way to remind us of the privilege of being alive and having eyes.

Where do you draw your color inspiration from ?

I mostly create monochrome sculptures in white paper because I want to maximize the play of light and shadow and make a visual allusion to white marble relief sculpture. In reality the works reflect the colour of the room in which they hang and change hue depending on the ambient lighting. When I do make coloured pieces I take inspiration from the colour palette of coral reefs, pastel tones with occasional highlights of saturated colour.

What brilliant piece of advice were you given on your creative journey and would be happy to share?

I love this quote from Andy Warhol:

“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding make even more art.”

What is something absurd that you love doing ?

I think talking out loud to myself whilst working is probably the weirdest thing I do, for other people at any rate, for me it’s totally normal!

What do you like about your work & what do you dislike about it?

I like the way that the pieces are never static, they move in the light and with the light like something alive. I sometimes dislike the long and often tedious labour that goes into making the works; they grow slowly and demand enormous patience which I sometimes lack.