Although varying in both mood and medium, all my works explore the same themes of memory and home. In the wake of grief and loss, I immigrated to the country my grandmother had emigrated from – turning well-known places into memories and turning memories passed down through the generations into familiar places. I seek to mimic this journey in my art by memorialising the home I once knew, mourning the future I had once assumed, and honouring the home I am building for myself now.
I employ various printmaking and textile printing techniques including aquatint, drypoint, repeat patterns, digital drawing, and devoré. Using these methods, I attempt to balance familiar, traditional styles such as repeat patterns inspired by William Morris and lace patterns with the graphic and dream-like imagery of a place anonymous to others but fundamental to my own experience.
Caitlin Brown was born in 1984 in Brooklyn, New York and lives and works in Navan, Co. Meath.
View from Porch (Repeat in Memory), digital drawing screenprint repeat pattern devoré on silk, 97 x 114cm (installation view)
View from Porch (Repeat in Memory), digital drawing screenprint repeat pattern devoré on silk, 97 x 114cm (detail)
Point Lookout 2011 (View from Porch), digital drawing negative screen print devoré on silk, 32 x 48cm
Point Lookout 2011 (View from Porch), copperplate aquatint print, 14.5 x 21cm
Enniscorthy Garden (Left for New York), drypoint print from milk carton, 30 x 29cm
Navan Garden (Left New York), drypoint print, 19.5 x 17.5cm
Point Lookout Beach Flags, drypoint print, 10 x 10cm
Pavilion and Dunes (The ‘A’s), copperplate aquatint print, 10 x 10cm
Memories of Dunes & Tide, multi-process print (drypoint and aquatint), 10 x 10cm
The Beach Thief (Repeat with New Generation), digital drawing repeat printed on velvet with cotton pom-pom trim, 93 x 97cm