Rerun: You-x presents ... Trevor Brown Day (orig. 06/24/08)

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"an introduction of sorts...

For my fellow Weaklings (or DC Blogsters as was once our name), and for anyone who remembers the last and only other day I've put together for this amazing place, today's subject should come as no surprise, coming from me - the other one was a massive thing around Japanese pornography, focused on women. Yes, my interest in, obsession with, dare I say love of, Japanese girls, women, sex, and the visual mediums come together once again - now with the beautiful colors of Mr. Brown. My obvious, what could be called, delight and emotional pull to his subjects is something that has seemed almost everyday to me in it's normality since coming across his work over a decade ago. And, I have taken it upon myself for some assortment of wonderful and troubling reasons, to present to you here an arrangement of that very artist's paintings, drawings, and more... for your consideration.

Along with my fondness for his visual works, I am delighted by the way Trevor writes. But, while assembling this post, I realized that Trevor's work since I first came to know it has become more complex and harder for me to understand. So, instead of featuring recent writings of his or about him, or even just extracts from his blog posts, I decided to include two early texts, one a sort self-interview and the other a more traditional interview (conducted via email no doubt) from the mid 90s when his work seemed to be everywhere I was looking. I hope that these, and the set of references mostly pulled from them that follow, may serve to elucidate your entry, or possible reconsideration, of the artist's work.

Full disclosure? fantasy cancellation or revived? I've never slept with a Japanese woman, but maybe race is an issue here? i.e. projection of a "magical" space on their bodies... and a psychological linking of sex and violence, at a young age, dovetailed into a hope for something special which I personally see in Trevor's work and a trajectory to concrete possibilities, the building material defined city-space, I'm guessing. But let's keep me out of it!

So the basics: Trevor is of course male, paints pictures of females, and is something of an outsider I would guess. But, aren't we all? He left his home country for Japan with a Japanese woman he later married. She makes these amazing teddy bears, which you can see below. I have no idea what Trevor looks like, I guess he feels that information is not important for his audience to know (I agree to disagree somewhat). While preparing today I did get to exchange some emails with him, which was nice. He very kindly contributed some pictures of recent works and a scan of the 'White Whip' drawing, which is a favorite of mine. In our emails I realized that there is more to Trevor's work than I could really even articulate here, my own shortcoming surely – oh but I get to stay out of this., unlikely.

Trevor Brown's art may be said to be of a world where almost everyone is sort of gorgeous, beautiful even. Sweet, or something like it, and isolated, naked, or close enough you can make out, if you'd like, what the clothes are shaping. And almost always the work is of a girl or woman. Trevor's lines are so soft it seems as though ones eyes could touch the body of the figure they create.

Alas, with the ongoing outrages of madness labeled 'concern' over sexuality and youth in art it's no surprise that Trevor's work often seems like it's in a world of its own. There was an outbreak of voiced sanity with the recent persecution of Bill Henson. Yet, when most artists are given the opportunity to explore these themes they more often than not flake out such as the case Trevor described on his blog around this recent 'lolita' themed exhibit. It is the fear of persecution that hinders them. What once was a threat of having your work barred from the establishment is now a very real threat of criminalization and sadly, incarceration. It's more than simple sickly-irony when hundred year old photos of Alice Liddell seem more adventurous and certainly more controversial than contemporary artists given an actual space to explore lolita themes.

The safety craved by society, or at least wired into it by mass media and figureheads has since the 70s seen any talk, let alone art, of childhood and sexuality, whether it be about abuse or consensual sex or personal experiences (imaginary or coming of age) or what have you, become seemingly quite dangerous and forbidden. Though I do recall an interesting book on that very subject published by MIT Press in the late 90s. But, art is a space where one would hope even the most frightening or hard to deal with subjects can be explored. With nameless, faceless, guro artists popping up I hope the work of Trevor Brown is the not the last of it's kind.

It deals with those themes in a way that is often beautiful, both light and dark, and not without a sense of melancholy. I don't mean to imply sentimentality. Anyway, if Trevor was to find himself persecuted for his work I wonder who with clout would speak up on his and his work's behalf? Perhaps his work has already been filtered out of the mainstream enough for it to exist in a space where those who would try to destroy it either don't feel threatened by it because it's so hidden or because they simply don't know of it.

I didn't put this post together to try and confront these issues, but I found them unavoidable. Trevor wrote in his blog back in February about new so-called obscenity laws in Japan further criminalizing thought and art. Trevor told me that he even had to throw out magazines containing his art because of this. Which I think is very sad. So, I hope that people will not be afraid, but rather push the envelope creating art exploring these world that some would like to black out - not just the eyes as in those defaced Bill Henson works - art that is smarter and with more depth than some would like to allow. Or as Dennis Cooper put it here when responding once again to the concerned 'too-young' contingent, "Finding the discomfiting, disturbing, depressing, melancholy, aesthetically inappropriate, etc. in the erotic, and challenging people's wish for easy going desire [...] " - something like that.

Not to misquote Dennis, or to drown you in paranoia, and I don't mean to mislabel Trevor as an erotic artist. Though I can't deny that I find an erotic quality at least examined in his work. Work which I very much enjoy, but obviously have found incredibly hard to talk about here. I could just say: figurative art, pastels, dolls, young girls – alone. Pastels, dolls, teddy bears. Bodily fluids, iconic references. Incomplete sentences. Toys, bruises, girls. Plastic bags, bondage, humiliation. Needles, barbed wire, vulva, penises, other organs. Conjoined twins, wounds, injury, make up. Bathrooms, hospitals. But that doesn't really get at it. I suppose if anything I've learned that while trying to explain what I see in Trevor's art, and why I care about it, I'm really forced to deal with my own sexuality in a way that scares the fuck out of me. Hopefully I can convince it to come back in, soonish.

There is a place of safety in his paintings, even in what seems like proximity to danger, bruises, violence; there is a calm, a tranquility in the space he creates. Is this safety in being tied up, held back? We as the viewers get to look the girl right in the eyes. it is up to us to figure out the whys and wherefores of the situation. There is also, as I said, a lightness in Trevor's work too, humor. As you will see.

Trevor's work explores not only girls and the space of their bodies, mostly but not only their surface, and pregnancy (a womb mind), inside... and psychology of it, which is somewhat beyond me. Medical problems... oh what the hell (again) : ye olde "lolita complex", dolls, drugged out girls, iconic stuff flipped into insertables, torture, pastels, teddy bear as doctor patient doll relationship. Scenes scenes scenes. Incomplete sentences? Japanese women, often alone. Naked girls. Oh kawaii! Sex around the corner. Afterwards or during, before. Figurative works, yes I said that, the subject was abused, or is somehow in need of help, maybe. Sometimes the girl is happy. The space of the body, almost always a female body. What is she thinking? why is she there, what happened, what is going to happen? why is she always looking out at me? she looks almost real, it could be real. It could be fake.

There are all sorts of things that I could try and say that this work explores. But, at this point I'll leave it up to you and his work to do the talking. Which I hope you do, and others will follow as I'd love to see more investigations towards a better informed appreciation and assessment of his work instead of the simplistic ones (pro and con) which have been so prevalent thus far. Like this current one, perhaps?

That said, as the Legendary Pink Dots wisely encouraged, and no doubt continue to, sing while you may. We too should look and think while we may as well.

Thank you.

~ Joseph Marcure

p.s.: included today is a recent work, "equally damaged" (yes, the name was inspired by blonde redhead) - guess what part of it might make it unpublishable in a certain country and you could win a lickable gold star."



Asobimasho



Black



Nursery Crime



Toys



Pink Transfusion



Xmas



Equally Damaged



Watch with Mother



Infinity



Electric High Chair



Nursie



Penis Pixie



Bad Inu



Crash Ballet



Kinoko Otoko



Toilet



Girl on Toilet



Teddy Bear



Chicken Pox



Pill Baby



Foetus in Head



Too Negative Babies



Fuck Off



Sixties Lolita Queen

Note: Kinoko Otoko and Crash Ballet are, as of this writing, available

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White Whip



Blasphemy01



Blasphemy06



Japanbon06



Japanbon05



Japanbon18



Youri

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Babyheart



Erotesque



Aesthetic Terrorism



Babies



Nurse Doll



Sexy Nurse



Mania



Crash silkscreen



Rich Bitch

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(collaboration with Hippie Coco)



little extract from unfinished cg animation, 'bunny and balloon dog'


Doll Penishead


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Hippie Coco (aka Konomi Izumi) http://www.hippiecoco.net/.



Japanese commercial; date, director unknown.









Covers of Wakana Itsuki DVDs. Wakana is Trevor's 



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p.s. Hey. Once upon a time there was a distinguished local of this blog named You-x, and, one day back in 2008, he presented viewers with this awesome and dedicated paean to Trevor Brown, and, well, whoa, here it is again. I'm in Scandinavia. Where are you?