About Rod

Roderick (Rod) Brown was born in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. Rod spent his first 30 years in this arid and remote gold mining town. As a youngster he remembers the great freedom he enjoyed surrounded by the stark but vivid images of the mines and surrounding bush, which he regularly explored. As a child he watched his father paint in oils and sketch, in charcoal and ink, portraits of local identities. The early seeds to later pursue art were sown at this time. Rod went on to live with his family in Australia, Europe and the USA. During this time he has visited over 40 countries around the world enriching his life and building on the foundations acquired in Kalgoorlie, which was a very multicultural society. Rod decided to explore his artistic leanings taking up oil painting while living in Sydney. At that time he was a member of the Castle Hill Art Society and The Hornsby Art Society and took up watercolour painting at this time, which has been his preferred medium since. Rod has exhibited at many public shows as well as solo exhibitions and has over the years painted commissioned portraits, his great passion. He has paintings in corporate and private collections with works in the USA, Canada, Sweden, UK, Japan, Peru and Australia. Rod paints watercolour studies of people, cityscapes, landscapes and still-life. His style embodies the use of strong vibrant local colour usually applied alla prima. The early influences in his paintings were the Australian Heidelberg school of painters including Sir Arthur Streeton and Charles Conder, the French impressionists Monet and Cézanne as well as the American watercolour artists, Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent. A contemporary painter he admires is the American watercolour artist the late Charles Reid. Rod traveled in 2001 and 2002 on two very rewarding painting trips to Italy. In 2002 he won the Gold Medal, First Prize in the  “Gold Age Art of Painting Competition” under the patronage of the Italian Consul in celebration of the founding of the Italian Republic “Festa Della Republica”. He also showed his work in an international exhibition in 2002 in Riva Del Garda, Italy. Rod won first prize for a watercolour at the annual exhibition of the West Australian Society of Arts in July 2003. He was invited to exhibit at the prestigious Florence Biennale 2013 in Italy. Rod is a member of the Watercolour Society of W.A. (past president) and the West Australian Society of Arts.

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