John Brown was born in Dumfries in the south west of Scotland and grew up on a large garden estate called Threave where his father worked. In 1985, he moved to Edinburgh to study for a degree in drawing and painting at Edinburgh College of Art and became one of the first to go on and graduate with a master's degree in painting in 1991. During this time, he was awarded a number of travelling scholarships that enabled him, after graduating, to make extensive tours of Europe and the United States. On returning to Scotland in 1994, he began teaching part time at Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) and Grays School of Art in Aberdeen. This has since led on to a more permanent position at ECA where John works with a wide range of students in the School of Drawing and Painting.

The experience of living and working in Edinburgh with its physical and historical density has greatly affected the nature and look of his work. At the same time, the nature of the work is constantly expanding. At the core of all his work, there is a fascination and obsession with 'STUFF' and all that the world contains at this point in history and trying to find various ways of representing it. Most of the work gives the sense of some sort of catastrophic busyness constructed of day-to-day ordinary incidents.

Projects undertaken recently have included, "I'd Rather be Drawing" (2007) a large drawing show at the Dennis Morgan Gallery ( Kansas City, Missouri); "Kabloom" (2007) a collaborative installation of work with Susan Mowatt at Gallerie Maronie (Kyoto, Japan); an exhibition centred around the publication of FlatPack (2008), a complex collaborative artists book in Wroclaw, Poland; "Nuts and Gum" (2008) a two-person show with Michael Krueger in space 204 (Nashville, TN); Nutsville (2009), an installation of 2,000 small images at the Open Eye Gallery (Edinburgh, 2009); the curation of "Our Stories" (2009) contemporary narrative printmaking at the John David Mooney Foundation (Chicago, IL) and "Doodleville," 889 works on paper at the Peter Potter Gallery (Haddington).

Another major project is World-a-Rama an ongoing series of events with Gordon Brennan that began as an exploration of ideas based on the Chicago Worlds Fair and the production of ephemera and the souvenir. This has involved large-scale installations in Chicago in 2008–09, the publication of various associated books and a residency at Anchor Graphics Chicago in August 2010.

Wednesday, October 31, 12:30 pm
Alfond Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts