Bio

Mills Brown was born in Florence, South Carolina in 1993. She earned her MFA in Studio Art from American University in 2017, and her BA in English and Art History from Wofford College in 2015. Mills has exhibited work in DC and Virginia, as well is in group shows in Cambridge, New Orleans, and Brooklyn, and in solo shows in DC and South Carolina. She currently lives in the DC area working between her studio and her Montessori art classroom.

Statement

In my studio I use matte vinyl paints, translucent acrylic washes, and collaged photos and paper to reinvent scenes from the different places I’ve called home. Many works reference bright rooms, nostalgic furniture and ghostly figures from my childhood in South Carolina. I love searching for decorations on bed linens, rugs, and wallpapers in old family photos and bringing them back to life on the canvas.

While I seek to capture a certain warmth and intimacy in these spaces, I also bring a critical eye to the myths of my childhood. As I create order in each composition, I consider how I might re-order the personal histories within. I rebuild these rooms as a way to reclaim them, holding them up into the light to ask which fragments of memory will continue to exist in my current narrative, and which stories have holes through the passing and revelation of time.