Invited artist:JASON BROWN
Cassiopeia & Cepheus
slate
This relief sculpture was created from layers of slate to resemble a mountain landscape. The constellations in the night sky above the ridgelines are also the title of the artwork “Cassiopeia and Cepheus.” Unlike related drawings and collages in my “Night Mountains” series, this piece is more dimensional with actual stone.
My recent work explores mountainous landscapes and rural cultures through a series of projects that question the controversial practice of mountaintop removal coal mining that is now prevalent throughout Southern Appalachia. This destructive mining practice has dramatically changed our regional landscapes throughout rural Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, and Kentucky.
Some of my sculptures reflect mountains and valleys in form, while others use scale shifts to overlay elements of maps and data with varied perspectives. The titles of artworks are derived from the mining industry, specific geographic locations, and the tools of surveying landscapes. I am also creating projects that engage viewers in a conversation about the environmental cost of energy extraction from the earth as it relates to our human wants and needs in a consumer culture. I want my objects and projects to challenge users to engage in a civic dialogue about individual, community, and place.​
Jason Sheridan Brown received his M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1999, and has been teaching Sculpture at the University of Tennessee since 2001. Brown’s artwork has been exhibited nationally, including solo and group exhibitions in 22 states, and internationally in Canada, Germany, and New Zealand.
In 2018, Brown completed a residency at the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity in Alberta, Canada. He recently participated in artist residencies and cast iron sculpture symposiums at the Western North Carolina Sculpture Park and at Atelier Haus Hilmsen in Germany this summer. His public art projects have included temporary large-scale outdoor sculpture installations at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota; North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville, North Carolina; Josephine Sculpture Park in Frankfort, Kentucky; and Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, Minnesota. His latest project is an outdoor sculpture commission with Tri-Star Arts at the historic Candoro Marble building in Knoxville.
Brown is involved in a number of collaborative public art projects and his work engages other disciplines including architecture, ecology and landscape design. Throughout his art and teaching, Brown emphasizes interdisciplinary cooperation amongst creative thinkers such as his current traveling exhibitions and curatorial projects with the Land Report Collective.
