Linnie Brown, “Edging to Nostalgia,” acrylic on panel, 48×36 in.

The paintings Linnie Brown is currently showing at ‘A’ Gallery bring to mind transparency as a visual fact, but also as a concept. Her layered images more than anything recall the cinematic lap dissolve, in which as one scene fades out, instead of the screen going dark, then another scene fading in, the two fades are superimposed, so that one scene seems to become transparent and disappear as the other grows more solid, with the screen remaining illuminated throughout. Thanks to the advent of digital formats—tape, DVD disc, downloads—that the viewer can pause at any time, we have become used to seeing the lap dissolve accidentally frozen, so that two scenes remain blended in transparency. In Brown’s art, a similar look suggests the way memories overlap when recollected, so everything becomes cognitively transparent and parts of one mental image appear in another.

Because she has painted them in acrylics on panel, Brown is able to draft her subjects in strong lines, rather than the light, sketchy marks painters usually prefer as being more free and easier to cover up. Not only do these crisp lines give her images a feeling of flawless accuracy, but her pencil lines are often visible through relatively transparent paint. This difference between mechanical outlines and hand-applied paint in interior spaces then creates a contrast between the diagrammatic character of the one and the fluid, visibly textured quality of the other. Oil painters often use a related approach to create outlines that surround the figures and separate them from the ground, but in Brown’s case it serves more to undermine the illusion of perfection—as seen when the work is viewed from a distance—by candidly reminding the close-up viewer that what could be photos or prints are, in fact, hand made originals, or dream-like memories.

Though born in Oregon, Linnie Brown chose to spend her adult life in Utah. Both states are predominantly rural, with isolated urban areas along the Willamette River in Oregon and the Wasatch Front here in Utah. Though the population is centered in those areas, the residents tend to identify with the farms and ranches that surround them, and to travel frequently for outdoor recreational activities and to visit historical sights. Thus, while the architecture on which Brown centers many of her paintings may have modern elements, the paintings invoke rural and suburban scenes. Yellow lines in “Spaces of Memory” may suggest a parking lot or a fence; a fragmented, compact car gives way to patches of ground like fields and a nearby barn, at the roof line of which foliage is oddly cut off, like reflections in a window that are overwhelmed by skylight.

Linnie Brown, “Spaces of Memory,” acrylic and charcoal on panel, 36×36 in.

Linnie Brown, “The Lay of the Land,” acrylic and charcoal on panel, 48×32 in.

A review of Brown’s digital archive shows her referencing everyday visuals that created this feeling of ambiguity long before the camera made it possible to lay transparent images over one another. In ‘A’ Gallery’s Proximity, precise balance between a shiny surface like a tabletop or floor, and a view of an interior, especially if inverted, can make it impossible to tell reality from reflection. Some titles likewise call attention to space, like “The Lay of the Land” and “Edging to Nostalgia,” while others create links to memory: “Forgotten Traces,” “Selective Recall,” and “Again and Again.” It’s important to know that, while on a first, casual viewing, the paintings may appear abstract and disorienting, in fact each is a treasure trove of sights ready to be teased out by the roving eye and its parts recollected from a surprisingly universal vocabulary of spatial, temporal, and especially architectural experience.

In her work, Brown acknowledges nature, but sets herself apart by featuring the built world, the interiors of structures, dwellings, and even of whole towns: the “where” wherein she and her audience largely choose to dwell. A comedian once asked why we want so badly to go outdoors, when we spend such a long time perfecting the indoors. In the midst of so many great artists who also choose to go, and to paint, outside, Linnie Brown reminds us that for most of us, most of our memories are situated in or around the built world. In her art, she argues we should probably pay as much attention to our daily lives and memories as we do those collected and treasured memories of nature. What she provides is an opportunity to take the tools we have learned to use for seeing and recalling other places and apply them to recalling and finally seeing our own places.

Linnie Brown, “Selective Recall,” acrylic on panel, 60×30 in.

Linnie Brown: Proximity, ‘A’ Gallery, Salt Lake City, through Apr. 27

Geoff Wichert

Geoff Wichert objects to the term critic. He would rather be thought of as a advocate on behalf of those he writes about.