You’ve described yourself previously as a Romantic. This seems to clash with dominant ideas about the abstractionist. How do you marry these two sensibilities?  

I don’t think that being an abstractionist necessarily precludes Romanticism. If a definition of Romanticism includes elements of emotion, free play and freedom from rules of form, then I absolutely embrace those. The reading of my work, seen as a disciplined practice and a particular exactness of application, shouldn’t be placed solely within a hard-edged, minimalist context that’s devoid of feeling. That’s just part of the story and it’s simply too easy to categorise in this way. 

Before you settled on painting as your medium, you worked in design and sculpture. Before you settled on abstraction, you worked as a representational painter. How do these past lives cohere in your current work?  

I’ve never formally studied design and I’ve always viewed any sculptures that I make as three-dimensional paintings. No matter what happens within my painting, no matter how flat or two-dimensional my work appears, I always think three-dimensionally. The development of my painting from the early, representational years, from essentially external to internal stimuli, happened very naturally and gradually. I don’t necessarily view abstraction separately from representation, as a noun … It’s more of a verb and manifests itself accordingly. 

Improvisation and association are important to your methodology, with each painting coming to be a plane or form or line at a time. Is this echoed within your body of work as a whole, with one series or idea following on from the next?  

Someone once told me that my work couldn’t be improvised because its execution was so methodical, exacting and slow, as if improvisation is restricted by speed of action and is only offered to gestural applications. When I work, I enable a kind of interstitial space between conscious thought and action. Eckhart Tolle talks about the power of Presence, the awakened state of consciousness, which transcends ego and discursive thinking. I try to follow something of this philosophy, with each series of works extrapolating from one to the next. 

Stillness and solace are important to your practice. How do you think about these values in the fast-paced context of an art fair?  

Providing a feeling of stillness, and a foil for the cacophony of life, have become essential elements in my practice. When I make my work, I seek and hopefully experience something of this inner stillness through a process that I can control. Once the paintings are made they are released into environments that I have little control over, environments that are often visually ‘noisy’ and over-stimulating. Art fairs are absolutely a challenge for my work. One hopes that my conviction and a palpable depth within the work will enable it to stand tall.

Browne’s work can be seen in Wagner Contemporary’s booth at the Melbourne Art Fair, taking place 22–25 February 2024 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.