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Introduction Leslie Browne March 13, 1953 Leslie Browne was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.. She studied drawing and painting at various academies in California before she took residence in the Netherlands where she continued her art education. Though she has lived in the Netherlands for almost 30 years, the subject of her work is still a critical portrait of the American middle class, and the effect that Western society has on a social level in the world. Being a product of the culture she is trying to define, her work is not without sentimentality. Her work has been influenced by television and film, painted in thin layers, without the appearance of brush strokes. She rarely paints the human figure; though metaphorically has painted houses, interiors and cars, which clearly define their presence. Road Paintings Leslie Browne's recent paintings are arbitrary landscapes of streets and freeways which put strangeness and romance into the every day event of driving. These road paintings make a comparison of the digital highways to the street highways. Whether looking into the monitor of a computer or through the windshield of a car, where we are is not as important as where we (think) we are going. We rarely experience our lives in 'real time'. Unfortunately as we develop in an over-populated world of advanced technology, we become accustomed to functioning on our own, whether it be traveling to work in our cars or using our home computers. We have more contacts than ever before because of the distances we can reach on the (digital) highways (s). But is our ability to communicate and have close relationships helped or hindered by our new technical skills? The symbol of being on the road is somehow hopeful as well. Maybe we will reach our goals. The idea of having control over one's destiny; having the freedom to move forward, is certainly the feeling of adventure portrayed in the image of cars on the road. But we proceed alone, isolated by the time limits of our personal schedules and by the metal and glass of the individual capsules we call cars. |