Becky Brown

Provenance: Courtesy of the Artist

Pyramid presents a colorful, painterly adaptation of the Data Information Knowledge Wisdom (DIKW) pyramid used in the fields of information science and knowledge management. In my version, the pyramid is flipped so “wisdom” occupies the largest position at the bottom. Both the lettering and the pyramid structure are not rigid, but curvy, elastic and irregular, suggesting that these concepts might not fit neatly into their assigned positions, or into this shape at all

Becky Brown was born in Manhattan and currently lives in Buffalo, NY. She works between painting, drawing, sculpture and installation using found images, objects and texts. Diverse materials inform her practice, including pre-modern poetic forms, current journalism and discarded appliances. She questions whether unlimited access to information and communication actually brings us deeper knowledge or human connection. Recent solo exhibitions include Arts+Leisure Gallery (NYC) and Fort Gondo Complex for the Arts (St. Louis). Group exhibitions include The Drawing Center (NYC), Queens Museum (NYC), Freight+Volume Gallery (NYC), A.I.R. Gallery (NYC), NARS Foundation (Brooklyn, NY), YoungArts Foundation (Miami, FL) and Religare Arts Initiative (Delhi, India). Her installation “No, said the Fruit Bowl,” in the kitchen of an abandoned home on Governors Island, was described in the New York Times as “machines vomiting as if in a bulimic’s nightmare.” Brown has been an artist-in-residence at MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Jentel, and the Edward Albee and Saltonstall Foundations, among others. In 2018, she received a “Bronx Recognizes Its Own” Award from the Bronx Council on the Arts. Her art criticism has been published in Art in America and The Brooklyn Rail. She received her MFA from Hunter College and currently teaches at SUNY University at Buffalo.