Born in 1949 Tom Brown studied ceramics at Manchester in the early 1970’s. He moved to the Derbyshire Peak District in 1973 and built a workshop and a series of successful wood fired, salt glaze kilns. He taught Art in Buxton for many years and was Head of Art department at Fenton College, Stoke on Trent before he moved to Spain where he now lives. His own work has always been incredibly important and he has exhibited and sold his pieces regularly. For a number of years now the emphasis in his work has shifted from ceramics and is now almost exclusively concerned with drawing and painting. Many years of caving and diving, running dogs, whisky and bagpipes, free flying and travelling in the mountains of Europe, Himalayas and China have created a rich tapestry of windswept and interesting experiences and an attitude which provides the background to his approach to painting.

As you look across the beautiful Tárbena valley at the spectacular Sierra de Ferrer and the Bernia mountains you would think an artist could not resist painting such wonderful scenery. The painter Tom Brown looks at these mountains everyday from his house and studio but does not paint them, he prefers to climb them. A lifetime as an adventurer and traveller, artist and teacher has had a strong influence on a man who now chooses to live and paint in the mountains of the Costa Blanca. After one journey through the Himalayas of Nepal and the highest mountains of the world the lasting impression he gained was not of the high peaks but of the people who live there. They live in extreme poverty but the Nepalese have the nobility and strength that you would associate with mountain people and yet they are among the kindest and gentlest people in the world.

“I am moved like everybody by the power of nature and in particular the almost spiritual feeling you can experience on the top of a mountain but I have found no way to fully express it in painting. Few artists, poets or musicians have been able to interpret these phenomena with the same intensity you feel in the real situation. Maybe the English painter W M Turner came closest 200 years ago. However I do feel moved by the human condition and I am always excited by the visual possibilities and the endless ways that exist to express ideas about people.”

Tom Brown and his wife Liz have spent the last five years building their house and studio in the Tárbena valley. Having spent a lifetime choosing to live outside of their comfort zone, moving into a new place with lots of new challenges not least of which has been learning a new language and making a new life, the last five years have indeed been a rich and full experience. During the last year with the house finished life has become much sweeter and they love it and are happily committed to their new life in Spain.

“Now I have more and more time to spend on my own painting at last I have the time to strike a balance between painting and thinking. I understand that in the past with full time teaching commitments my paintings have been on safe ground with only limited development. Now is the time to leap into the void and take some chances! As the controversial British artist Tracey Emin said “I am standing on the edge of a precipice but it is a wonderful view...

I have a two pronged attack. I have always had a liking for complex process and the complicated multi layered techniques offered by oil painting. I also want to respond to the strong Spanish character and the new culture that is all around me. My first line of thought is to paint the people in fiesta mode in the spectacular costumes of the Moros and Cristianos fiestas. It is a theme close to the feeling of the work I have done in the past using rich and decorative subjects. I have been working on three paintings on this theme based on last year’s fiestas in Callosa d’en Sarriá. The largest and most ambitious painting is of a Moro prince on horseback. It has been something of a penance with many hours spent on detail and the challenge of rendering the many different types of material. By taking on such a technically ambitious project I was also using it as an opportunity to totally immerse myself in the painting process and to improve the fluency in my painting.

My second line of thought is still based on people and requires much more thinking and is really where I want to go as a painter. I have taught young people all my life and now I have seven grandchildren, young people and their future are of concern to me. I had a discussion recently with a friend of mine who is a psychologist and has great affinity with the creative process. She said that the true artist must reflect the pain in the world, it is their responsibility. This helped me crystallize my thoughts because my feelings are of a more optimistic nature. One thing that has stayed with me after years of teaching is that young people always enter the world with fresh optimism. Like all previous generations they believe they can make a difference and want to improve on what was there before. The next generation of young people has perhaps the greatest challenge yet with the environmental issues they will have to deal with. Without their optimism and without our support we will change nothing. Other artists and the television news can deal with the pain. Some of the best people I have known have been 17 and 18 years old and I want to deal positively with the future, their future.

I find it is possible in everybody’s face to detect conflicting emotions which often are visible at the same time; determination with anxiety or arrogance paralleled with insecurity. I think this phenomenon is even more transparent in the faces of young people. They have a determination and enthusiasm to deal with the future yet this is combined with a certain lack of confidence clearly because this is the first time for them. More than any other artist, I think Rembrandt has been able to capture this ambiguity and with such success that he almost touches the very soul of his subject. This is where I want to go.

During 2009 I have been working on a painting called ‘A conversation with Goya’. I have painted a young Spanish face which displays the pride and attitude which is so Spanish. She is both strong and yet uncertain. I am no longer concerned with becoming a slave to achieving a likeness. I am concerned more with searching for the qualities which express the emotions I am trying capture. I start with a face that interests me and then take the rest of the journey in my imagination. The context and the story develop along the way suggested by my own dialogue with the painting. It is a wonderful feeling of liberation with open ended possibilities. However sometimes I do think I have liberated myself from the frying pan only to find it a little hotter in the fire. In this particular painting there are also references to Goya whose work I am drawn to more and more as part of my journey to get to know Spain.

As fits my ideas, I am living in a very beautiful part of Spain but my heart is with the people I have got to know and have become friends with. Interestingly the small minority of people who choose to move here and live in the mountains are of a different type and their nationality is of little importance. Without doubt the most important connection has been with our friends from Tárbena who have always lived in the mountains. Although I now live in Spain I cannot become Spanish; I live in the campo but I will never be a campesino but I love the life here and I have total respect and a wish to be part of a community with people who are.

The richness that can be gained from living in a new place with new people provides the substance not only to my life but to my painting. Living in a new place somehow allows you to take one step backwards to observe the human condition and see things more clearly.”

“The view is wonderfully clear from the edge of the precipice …. the future is exciting.”