Leah Brown is a Sculpture and Installation Artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Originally from Asheville, NC, Leah received her B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI. She spent 2006-2007 as one of the four inaugural Artists-in-Residence for the HUB-BUB residency program in Spartanburg, SC, where many of the works show here were created. In 2007 She participated in a second South Carolina Residency Program, “Accessabilty 2007: Sustainability”, where she created the Installation “Lavinia and the Birdman”. Recent employment included construction of the figures by Spaeth Design seen in the 2007 Times Square Holiday windows at Lord and Taylor, Hudson Bay Co, and Macy’s. She is Currently an Art Fabricator for KB Projects. Upcoming projects are top secret. But you’ll see them soon.

Artist Statement 2008:

Archaic mentality is characterized by the belief that humans can gain a clear consciousness of themselves by confronting what a person is and simultaneously is not. This confrontation, in many cultures, occurs within the dream or in an illusory state, whereby the dreamer projects herself into unfamiliar bodies and situations. The works that I am presenting here are the visual representations of this idea of transformation and consequence, and are attempts at visually understanding the nature of my own reality. The installations are made up of the American roadside’s leftovers which constitute my personal landscape with everything from cotton and straw to found clothing and trash. The sculptures are like the denizens of these landscape in the way that in dreams, the characters therein are modified versions of the self. The usually female figures I create are symbolically modified amalgams of feminine archetypes and personal symbols, and are composed of castings of my own body parts blended with found and sculpted objects. My intention is to alter my viewers’ perceptions of their surroundings, taking them out of their ordinary frames of mind and giving them the experience of being transported into another world. When a person questions their own reality for even a moment, the experience becomes unforgettable, and I have accomplished something much greater than a mere combination of materials.