Mia Brownell was born in Chicago, Illinois to a sculptor andbiophysicist. She uses the conventions of the painted food still life as a means to comment on contemporary issues surrounding food. Her paintings simultaneously reference 17th century Dutch Realism and the coiling configurations of molecular imaging. Mia has had solo exhibitions in major American cities including New York, Boston and Washington, DC. Mia’s paintings are in several private, corporate, and public art collections including Wellington Management, Fidelity Investments and the National Academy of Sciences. Her work has been reviewed and published in numerous publications including The Boston Globe, The Village Voice, New York Times, HiFructose and Artnet Magazine. Mia’s paintings have been included in group exhibitions worldwide. She teaches painting and drawing in New Haven at Southern Connecticut State University. The J. Cacciola Gallery represents her artwork in NYC.
STATEMENT
During the past decade, I completed several series of paintings, each of which has investigated different facets of how food is perceived. These series are titled Complexities of the Garden, Adventures of a Reluctant Omnivore, Stomach Acid Dreams, and most recently Delightful, Delicious, Disgusting. My paintings are frequently inspired by images retrieved from Protein Data Bank files (where the structures of proteins and nucleic acids are recorded) and the history of food as a subject in still life. The paintings suggest a crosscurrent of contemporary themes including the complexities of the industrialized food complex as well as current fundamental models of the natural universe.
ABOUT THE COLLECTIVE:
This ongoing collaboration has been similar to learning a foreign language, bringing appreciation and pleasure to unexpected interpretation.