LaKela Brown
Untitled works on paper, 2021
“The artist’s paper impressions share the love-letter quality of her plaster works—they exist full of material and compositional polarities," notes Birdget Finn. "Grids of neatly organized hoop earrings oppose sheets of irregular groupings that appear to be falling off the page. Here, the hoop earring triumphs, cleverly subverting conceptions of value, taste and wealth.”
Quote courtesy of Reyes Finn gallery
During her project at Dieu Donné, LaKela Brown embossed freshly made sheets of cotton paper with door knocker earrings. After careful composition, each sheet was individually pressed and the earrings were removed, leaving a detailed impression on the wet sheet. To preserve the subtleties of the embossment, each sheet was partially air dried before drying under restraint. Gold leaf was then selectively applied to the dried works based on Brown's specifications.
Artwork description courtesy of Dieu Donné
LaKela Brown, Untitled, 2021. Embossed Cotton, 30h x 22w inches. Image courtesy of Dieu Donné.
LaKela Brown, Untitled, 2021. Embossed Cotton Paper and Gold Leaf, 24h x 18w inches. Image courtesy of Dieu Donné.
About the Artist
LaKela Brown (b. 1982, Detroit, MI) attended Detroit Public Schools and graduated from the College for Creative Studies in 2005. She is the recipient of an OxBow School of Art, MI fellowship and participated in the Mano y Mente residency in Tula Rose, NM. Brown has participated in solo and group exhibitions globally, including at Reyes | Finn, Detroit; 56 Henry, NY; Swiss Institute (SI), NY; WE BUY GOLD, NY; Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), NY; and Lars Friedrich Gallery, Berlin, and has presented a solo installation of her work at Rockefeller Center in partnership with Art Production Fund. Brown is a professor at RISD: Rhode Island School of Design. She has also held teaching positions at New York University and The Cooper Union. Brown’s work resides in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The artist’s work has been published and written about in Black Futures, an American anthology of Black art, edited by writer Jenna Wortham and curator Kimberly Drew, and in publications such as The New York Times, Artforum, Cultured, Artnet News, and Artsy, among others.
Artist bio courtesy of the Reyes Finn gallery