Cecily Brown

Online labs: April 16 - May 21, 2021
In person: from June 2 - 6 at The Space Between, and June 27 - July 2 at Buffalo Academy of Visual and Performing Arts
Display of mural source material and drawings:
The Space Between
431 Ellicott Street
June 2 - July 31, 2021
In partnership with Artist/City, Bortolami, NYC

Twice a year, the Arts Collaboratory welcomes a visiting artist. In Spring 2021, our Working Artists Lab will be led by renowned painter Cecily Brown in partnership with Artist/City, Bortolami, NYC. As the weather warms, Cecily will collaborate with a group of artists and storytellers, accompanying them out of their studios and classrooms and onto the streets of the city to create a mural intended for all of Buffalo.

The team of seven Buffalo artists and storytellers assembled for the project hail from diverse neighborhoods and artistic disciplines: Naila Ansari, Julia Bottoms, Pam Glick, George Hughes, Jodi Lynn Maracle, Jae Skeese, and Sara Zak. The story behind the mural will come from their own lived experiences, with Cecily acting as facilitator and adviser. Collaboration grants will be offered to all participants. 

The first team brainstorming session will kick off on April 16 and continue through June 2 at the Arts Collaboratory’s new incubator, The Space Between, which will be transformed into an artists’ studio or workshop, where Cecily will be working with the local storytellers and artists to complete plans for a large-scale mural. “This will be the first truly public art piece I’ve ever worked on, and the first time I’ve worked with a team, and I could not be more excited,” says Cecily. “Buffalo is such a vibrant and interesting place and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to be involved with something that will become part of the fabric of the city.”

The Working Artists Lab and community mural is part of Bortolami’s Artist/City initiative, which brings evolving yearlong exhibitions to cities across the United States. “At their core, Artist/City projects are about local communities,” says Stefania Bortolami. “I am looking forward to building an understanding of the Buffalo arts community, and to helping create a platform for Buffalo artists to share their work. I cannot wait to see the path that Cecily and the Buffalo Storytellers and Artists decide to follow for the community mural, and I am very excited to be working with the Arts Collaboratory’s Working Artists Lab for what I am sure will be an extraordinary project.”

Born in London in 1969, Cecily Brown received her BA in Fine Arts from the Slade School of Art, London, in 1993. Brown’s work is included in public collections such as the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Tate Gallery. In 2018 – 2019, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen presented CECILY BROWN: Where, When, How Often and with Whom, a twenty-year survey of Brown’s paintings, drawings, and prints. A major exhibition of new paintings was on display at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England, from September 2020 to January 2021.

Bortolami opened in September 2005. The gallery has presented exhibitions by Richard Aldrich, Barbara Kasten, Ivan Morley, Morgan Fisher, and Tom Burr, artists with whom the gallery has had long-standing relationships. The Bortolami program has expanded to include such artists as Daniel Buren, Ann Veronica Janssens, Caitlin Keogh, Lena Henke, Lesley Vance, Marina Rheingantz, Virginia Overton and Renée Green.

In 2017, Bortolami relocated to the Tribeca neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. The program has also expanded regionally with the launch of the Artist / City initiative, which brings evolving yearlong exhibitions to cities across the United States. These projects include Daniel Buren/Miami, Eric Wesley/St. Louis, Tom Burr/New Haven, Jutta Koether/Philadelphia, Ann Veronica Janssens/Baltimore, Barbara Kasten/Chicago and Paul Pfeiffer / Washington, D.C. In 2019, Bortolami opened a second exhibition space, 55 Walker, a collaborative venture with Andrew Kreps Gallery and kaufmann repetto.