Elected ARE 2021
Promoted to RE 2024
Ian Brown's 'News from The Critical Zone' is a series of photopolymer etchings which evolved from his research on a previous set of 8 screenprints 'The Seven Seas'. The damage he witnessed on that project led him to research species loss in the UK and this new series of etchings is the outcome.
The French philosopher Bruno Latour describes 'the critical zone" as a space just a few kilometres deep - above and below the surface of the Earth where all discovered life in the universe exists. By collapsing the infinite cosmology opened up by Galileo in this way Latour is telling us we can not endlessly extract resources and discard our waste. We must maintain what we have because it is finite, it's local and it's at risk
This series of 8 etchings explores the fragility of this situation through images connected to climate change and species loss. The map of the Knepp Estate featured twice provides a small note of optimism.
Ian Brown runs 'Volcanic Editions', a Fine Art Printmaking workshop in Brighton specialising in screenprint and photopolymer etching.