Soft-spoken, but laden with a calm and measured passion, Dennis Brown has been fascinated with art since childhood. Growing up in a working class family, Brown’s passion was stoked by his artistic mother.

A true 49th paralleler, Brown was born and raised in Vancouver, educated at the University of British Columbia, the Emily Carr Academy of Art and Design, and the Vancouver Academy of Art.

While his studio full of paintings of mountains, lakes, glaciers, and sunsets currently reflects his upbringing and Pacific Northwest education, it wasn’t always that way. Brown spent years producing abstract work, cubism, and more politically inclined paintings.

He explains, “I went through a phase when I was involved in a lot of political activities, doing very pretentious, political work. But over time, I found that I just love nature and I love the peacefulness, being out there, in an almost Zen-like experience of observing.”

A mountaineer and lover of the outdoors, Brown uses a traditional plein air approach to his painting.  He’ll drive up to Rice Lake or out to the Rockies with his French easel and carful of plywood panels and supplies. The panels are small and durable and used to do sketches on site. He doesn’t like to paint directly from photographs, instead preferring the method that was done prior to the invention of the camera. From hundreds of these sketches, he’ll pick a few favourites and replicate them into a larger works.

This particular style of painting can be a gamble on both ends. A plein air sketch needs to be completed in two or three hours—before the light changes. Then the real challenge: studying the abbreviated and notational brush strokes of quickly done, postcard-sized scenes, emulating the authenticity of what he initially captured, and expanding them into larger (upwards of 36 x 60) landscapes.

Bringing up Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, Brown admits, “I use similar methods and I paint Canadian landscapes so [my paintings] look a bit like them, but I’m certainly not trying to copy another era...I think paintings should be beautiful,” he says. “The liberating part of that, for me, is that ‘It’s all been done’ so let’s just go back to doing things well and accept that any genre of art is valid.”

It seems unfair for Brown to be judged on using older techniques and looking to Canada’s super natural surroundings for inspiration, especially as he seems to have arrived at it so intrinsically.

“I’m not against the new or the novel,” he explains. “I’m against this notion that in order to be significant or avant garde, you have to be deliberately obscure.” In the end, Brown believes nothing more complicated than, “People should buy what they like.“

This mantra is obviously working for him with his art being held in private collections across Canada, the United States, Europe, and Australia. But Brown is also passionate about younger and newer buyers accessing his (and other artists’) work. "A lot of people are intimidated by buying art.”

While the overall scene can be quite elitist, events like the Culture Crawl lend opportunities for local art to reach new eyes—and pocketbooks. Brown says, “Over the years I’ve known a number of people who’ve come back again after buying that first painting; it’s quite a thrill for them. [The art] is original and it’s something that only they own.”

And why shouldn’t everyone enjoy art? Even if young and/or first-time buyers are still learning, so are the artists. Brown has spent decades painting and studied under masters like Canadian landscape artist Paul Chizik, but admits, “With each painting I’m still learning. Handling the paint is a huge mystery and exploration for me. It’s always so interesting by trial and error.”

Brown has a lot to say about the art world and those who run it, but concedes that he’d rather leave politics out of his art and simply paint what he finds beautiful and appealing, restful and contemplative. In reference to landscapes, Brown says, “I’ll paint like this forever—or as long as I can, anyway.” Beyond his love for painting the Canadian outdoors, Brown has also spent years studying portraiture and still life. He clearly enjoys the academic, technical approach as a balance to his more abstract landscape work. 

Though politics have stayed out of his paintings, they never leave his mind. He wants aspiring art buyers to trust their guts and understand: “If you can buy a little painting and it’s peaceful and lovely, that’s as valid as anything some ‘[art] guru’ can tell you to buy.”

With paintings as beautiful as Dennis Brown’s, it’s valid indeed.

View Dennis Brown's profile of work for rent or sale on ArtsALLY.com.