Click on an image above to open one of the gallery links

Artist Profile

    Welcome to the website of Anglo-American artist Brian Flynn. Born in England, Brian has lived and worked in Italy, Holland, Germany, North America, Thailand and Malaysia, and currently has settled in Egypt, a most holy and sacred land. Below is a brief outline of his rich and varied artistic career over the last thirty years or so, followed by a curriculum vitae.

 

History

   

    After a two year period in London upon completing his formal training in the fine arts at Newcastle University, Brian went on to live in Amsterdam where, in addition to painting watercolors, he painted on silk and made limited edition silkscreen works on paper, silks and fine cotton. From Amsterdam he moved to the Border Region of southern Scotland, where he made many sketches of the local Cistercian Abbeys, castles and the two earliest Christian monasteries in Britain at Iona and Lindisfarne.

 

 

    Los Angeles was his next stop, and California was to become his home base for the next 25 years. After an initial period of designing stained glass windows there, he moved to settle in the peaceful foothills of Northern California, where he developed special techniques of painting large scale watercolors measuring up to one by two meters, focusing on still life and floral subjects. In addition to his painting activities, Brian also became curator for a small private museum with an outstanding collection of European and Oriental paintings, sculpture and decorative arts, allowing him to closely study the works of many great old masters at first hand.

 

 

    During a four year sojourn in Italy, he lived in Naples where the extraordinary quality of the light was a major revelation and inspiration for him. Through contact with several Italian artists and research at the University of Naples, he rediscovered some ancient early Renaissance techniques and added egg tempera and acrylics to his ever expanding repertoire. In addition to the easel paintings, he began a series of huge wall-murals in villas around the city, and on the island of Capri.

 

 

   This increase in scale was to continue when he moved back to California and was invited to design, build and paint scenography for the stage, including ballet, opera, and Greek and renaissance plays. Painting canvases of up to thirty meters long by twelve meters high was both an enormous challenge and a brilliant adventure.

 

 

    The next stop was China, where Brian found his way to the sacred Yellow Mountain, known as Huangshan. Atop its lofty peaks and unusual rock formations, he was captivated by the Sea of Clouds as it slowly but constantly changes, its ebb and flow revealing and concealing different aspects of the enchanted landscape. A tree in the foreground remains fixed, but the light, the spiritual and emotional atmosphere in which it lives and exists is endlessly changing. How to capture this? To focus on something crystal clear in a world which is constantly changing?

 

 

    The Japanese screens of the Edo period provided the answer; to paint the subject in acrylic on a background of pure gold. These contrasting mediums allow for a constantly changing relationship between the luminous and the opaque. After learning how to prepare and apply gold leaf, Brian developed a way to apply texture over the gold, to evoke the deepest essence of the subject. You can view the results for yourself in a series named California Gold.

 

 

    Later, Brian went on to stay with his brother in Thailand, where he was exposed to tropical vegetation and deeply saturated color. This resulted in the Thai Gold series, which centered around orchids and exotic flowering trees.

 

 

    Most recently, Egypt is the source of inspiration for Brian in his pursuit of artistic and spiritual quests. Through a series of acrylic and watercolor paintings, he explores and investigates aspects of daily life in this most ancient country, and in a new series entitled Egyptian Gold  certain specially chosen subjects are given a more intensive study and elevated to a status which they are not normally associated with. Yet digging just a little beneath the surface, we uncover the fact that they are mentioned with great respect and esteem in various sacred texts.

 

 

     

Curriculum Vitae

History;

1955          Born in Northumberland, England

1976          Graduated with Bachelor of Arts Degree, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England

1977-79     Amsterdam - Painting and Silk-screen printing on fabric.

1981-86     Los Angeles & Sacramento, California – stained glass and large scale watercolors

1987-90     Naples, Italy – Murals & paintings in egg-tempera, watercolor, acrylic

1991-93     Northern California, Curator for Goethe Academy Art Museum

1993          Thailand & Malaysia, gold-leaf and acrylic paintings

1994-2005  Northern California, acrylics, murals, stage design and painting

2005-07     Egypt, gold-leaf and acrylic paintings, watercolors

 

Works;

Private collections in Europe and USA;

Bulgari Collection, Frascati, Italy.

De Pasquale Villa, Capri.

Dr. Dissellhoff Collection, Dusseldorf, Germany.

Dr. Annis Collection, Palo Alto, California.

Frew Collection, Mirage Hotel, Las Vegas.

Marco Grassi Collection, New York.

 

Stage Productions;

Opera: Don Giovanni, Madam Butterfly, Marriage of Figaro, Rigoletto, Magic Flute, the Bourgeois Gentleman, Hansel and Gretel

 

Ballet: The Pharaoh’s Daughter, Swan Lake, Napoli, Gala performances

 

Drama: Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew, Conference of the Birds, Antigone, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus in Collonus, the Frogs, Goodbye my Fancy

 

Exhibitions;

1988          Noemi Ramer Gallery, Viareggio, Italy

1988          Ca Bianca, Milan, Italy.

1989          Galleria Pace, Milan, Italy.

1989          More Nuci, Milan, Italy.

1989          Castel del’Ovo, Naples, Italy.

1989          Galleria Merliani, Naples, Italy.

1993          Gallery Taksu, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

1994          Horizons, San Francisco, California

1994          Arts Council Gallery, Marysville, California

1995          Sacramento Arts Council, California

2007          Winter Palace, Luxor

2007          Grand Hyatt Hotel, Cairo

 

Television/publications;

“Artists Alive”, Sacramento Cable TV, featured artist 6 programs 1991-95

Encyclopedia of Living Artists in America, vol. 3, vol.4, Artnetwork, 1992,93

Erotic Art by living artists Volume IV, Artnetwork, 1993

 

Statement;

To paint you need to be in love. So to be a painter you need to be in love all the time! Of course this doesn’t mean with just a person; you need to expand the horizons and be in love with all and everything. And this ultimately leads to the great mystery of the Creator of it all too. When you’re in love even the most ordinary and mundane subject can be filled with wonder and beauty. How can I paint something I don’t love? What would be the result?

It is truly a great honor and privilege to be living in Egypt this last few years, where the very ground is sacred and the deeply spiritual atmosphere of millennia of worship continues to pervade daily life. Everywhere you turn there is new inspiration, from the coffee pot, to the date palm, the donkey, and the Nile, not to mention the great mosques and ancient temples. And all of this is immersed in the wonderful spirit of the Egyptian people. There is so much more still to paint, and to love!

Working with pure gold is both a great challenge and a reminder of the special importance of what you are painting. Not all subjects are worthy of such high honor, which is traditionally reserved for the highest and noblest subjects. Indeed, it elevates the subject to a more sacred level, above that of our normal everyday perception of things. And the gold really lives and breathes in its response to light – look at these paintings in different lighting conditions to experience the full effect, and it is surprising.

 

 

Recent works will be added to this website on a regular basis. To purchase or commissions works in any of the mediums specified, please click on the contact information below. Works are available in the following standard sizes, or customized to suit your own requirements.

   

 email: brian@bflynn.net