Event
Memories Misused
Peter Brown
Real Art Ways presents a solo exhibition by photographer Peter Brown.
The images in Memories Misused represent recollections from a personal trauma the artist Peter Brown experienced as a victim of an armed home invasion in 2013. The themes of innocence, violence, dismay, anger, violation, vengeance, resilience, and justice throughout these works convey the multi-layered dispositions associated with persons suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The work is produced from digital captures, color negative film, lensless cameras, Pinhole photography, scanography, and digital manipulations. Layering these processes onto still life, an otherwise mundane subject matter, creates a kaleidoscopic dreamscape of confusion, nostalgia, and optical violation. The use of personal objects, home goods, and items related to this violent experience further confronts the notion of assumed comfort.
Brown draws inspiration from contemporary photographers David Levinthal, Sandy Skogland, Cindy Sherman, and Laurie Simmons who frequently model and manipulate nostalgic, cultural paraphernalia in order to achieve new narratives.
With saturated colors, heightened textures, and obscured familiar objects, Brown evokes a sense of disorientation and discomfort, inviting viewers to confront the fragility of security within the confines of the familiar. These whimsical yet haunting images serve as a metaphorical exploration of the home invasion’s aftermath by blurring the boundaries between safety and danger, the real and surreal, and cause and effect.
As gun violence becomes increasingly documented in America, we are inundated with stories of what happens when the firearm goes off. However, the mere threat of a firearm can erode our psyche to a lateral place of trauma. Memories Misused does not intend to take a position in the ongoing firearm debate, but begs the question, “Is being targeted a universal feeling?” Peter Brown uses personal experience to draw focus to subjects that are on the other side of the barrel, and the long journey to safety endeavored thereafter.
About the Artist
Peter Brown currently resides in Pine Meadow, CT, and received a BFA in 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional design from the Hartford Art School. After graduating, he took his sculptural skills towards jobs in construction, then changed course and applied his love of photography towards the commercial advertising photography field.
In 1985, he co-founded Woodruff/Brown Architectural Photography, later transitioning to Peter Brown Photography.
Peter’s most recent explorations have been with pinhole and scanography alternative photographic processes. Brown has exhibited works at Five Points Gallery in Torrington, CT, Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Boston Society for Architecture, and received an Excellence award from the Connecticut Art Directors Club in 2024.
In 2024, Brown completed photography for Preservation in Action, a book publication that tells the compelling story of Old Wethersfield, Connecticut’s largest and oldest historic district in its oldest town, published by Wesleyan University Press.
(top)
Red Revolver 0274
Digital Flatbed Scanner Photograph
38” x 28.14”, Archival Giclee 100% Cotton Print
(bottom)
Caution 2732_41713
Digital Flatbed Scanner Photograph
60” x 44”, Archival Giclee 100% Cotton Print
(thumbnail)
Disguise_TeddySmilesColt38Special
Pinhole Photograph, 4×5 Color Negative Film
60” x 69.5”, Archival Giclee 100% Cotton Print
