Kristen Brown

Left and Leaving, Oil Painting

2025

Artist Comments
Three friends gather outside an apartment building, their figures softened by hazy brushwork and a softened palette. The painting evokes the echoes of youth and how certain places hold the imprint of conversations, friendships, and departures. It is a meditation on the spaces we outgrow but never fully leave behind, the weight of leaving, the pull of return, and the moments that linger long after they pass.

About the Artist
Artist Kristen Brown sheds light on the fragility of memories with her dreamlike portraits. Kristen uses her knowledge of photography to create motion blur, distortion and multiple exposures in her oil paintings, overlapping figures, landscapes and cityscapes. The models in her paintings are referenced from people close to her, and the locations are significant places from various time periods throughout her life. "I will often use multiple places or time periods in a painting to illustrate the idea of being taken back into a past moment from a current one, or the idea of the past and present feeling as though they are happening simultaneously," she explains. In the rare cases when she is not painting, you can find her printmaking, dabbling in ceramics, traveling, playing guitar or meditating. Kristen graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada and a Master of Fine Arts from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA.

Words that describe this painting: figure, memory, nostalgia, friends, friendship, youth, facade, people, surrealism, realism, oil painting, blue

Left and Leaving
Kristen Brown
Oil painting on stretched canvas
Finished white edges
Varnished and Ready to hang
One-of-a-kind
Signed on back
2025
24 in. h x 24 in. w x 2 in. d
2 lbs. 0 oz.