Acclaimed Padgate Artist To Present His First Solo Exhibition At Pyramid

An award-winning Warrington artist is about to host his first solo exhibition in his hometown.

Cameron Brown's profile has continued to rise since he won 'Art Battle Manchester' at Parr Hall as part of Warrington Contemporary Arts Festival 2019.

Since then the talented Padgate painter has been in a fruitful partnership with Culture Warrington which has led to a residency at Pyramid Arts Centre and high profile work such as his striking largescale portrait piece at the bus station.

Now Cameron will present In The Particular at Pyramid from Friday, 4 February, until 8 April which takes inspiration from how we inhabit our surroundings.

Things like the people of Warrington, drunken conversations in the pub, hazy memories and the imprints we leave on a place were all on the former Priestley College student's mind when he created the pieces.

Cameron got the name for the exhibition from a quote by 20th century Irish novelist James Joyce: 'In the particular is contained the universal'. He was also influenced by the cultural commentators and writers Jean Baudrillard and Hart Crane.

Cameron said: "The foundation for most of my pieces stem from the thought that our universal experiences are found not with grandiose, abstract ideas but with the particulars of everyday 'trivialities'.

"The idea that we live in a cyclical world, where things are destined to be repeated, reused and developed slowly and slightly over a huge period of time - to a point that the original purpose is seemingly forgotten but the idea will always still remain under the surface.

"This idea of a 'memory of a memory' is something I try to recreate in my paintings, the process of my work is as important, if not more so, than the final outcome - the constant reworking and reshaping of each piece allows me to cut through the subject to explore the fundamental elements of what it is to inhabit a space and how we leave our imprint on it.

"This thought process was also prevalent in my painting 'As You Are Now, So Once Were We', a public art piece commissioned by Culture Warrington and situated at the Warrington Bus Interchange where the subject matter was the residents of Warrington."

In The Particular is the first exhibition of the year at Pyramid with much more to come throughout 2022.

Roger Jeffery, Producer for Culture Warrington, added: "Cameron is an exciting artist with a painterly and expressive style and I'm delighted that he's kicking off our 2022 exhibition programme with his debut solo show.

"The focus for this year's exhibition programme at Pyramid is new artists from Warrington, and this show is a great opportunity for visitors to see a new body of work from a talented local artist."

In The Particular opens at Pyramid's Atrium on Friday, 4 February, and is free to view.