COLIN BROWN: Love letter to Europe

With over thirty years practice, Colin Brown has become Scotland's most prominent collage artist. For this show Brown has produced fifteen incredible new works which celebrate the diverse and shared heritage of fifteen cities in Europe from Gothenberg in Sweden to Lisbon in the south. 

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As a young boy growing up in the Scottish Highlands, one year for my birthday I was given a large radio. The dial fascinated me with its seemingly random list of European place names. I remember Lyon, Praha, Hilversum, Bremen, Goteborg, Rotterdam and Berlin - but there were of course many others.

This radio became my constant companion and I scrolled endlessly through the long and short wave bands, picking up fragments of European language and music. 

Occasionally, and with great delight, I stumbled across a football match!

My radio enabled me to realise for the first time that although I was Scottish, I was also part of a bigger picture.

Here began a lifelong affinity with the continent of Europe, strengthened later by regular visits to its many cities. I even lived among my fellow Europeans for a time, in Italy and Germany.

Coming forward to the present day, and in light of all the current negative atmosphere, I feel very strongly the need to register my deep personal love for Europe in its many forms - and to celebrate its diverse cultures, languages and traditions.

So the idea was formed to create a series of fifteen paintings paying homage to specific cities I have spent time in. This project has now come together into a fully realised exhibition with Kilmorack Gallery. This is my Love Letter to Europe.

Some of these places I know well, others less so. Each city in its own way represents a part of the Europe I love.

While there's a common geographical and cultural thread, each retains its own individual history and identity.

My stance throughout has been one of inclusion, not exclusion.

We are all different yet the same.

I am forever a proud Scottish European.

Colin Brown, February 2019