Untitled small wave, (wide stripe graphite over blue) by Galen Brown

What makes you truly happy?

Being in nature and in the moment.

Galen Brown began a series of waves drawings in the mid 1990’s and has continued ever since. The medium size waves each approximately 12” x 9” are a collection of 137, that stay together as a series. However in 2020 Brown began making smaller wave drawings, a selection of which are available here.

Short Bio

Galen Brown was born in Reno in 1959 and raised in both Reno and at King’s Beach, Lake Tahoe. He was a dedicated junior ski racer on the Reno Falcons ski team and later the Lake Tahoe Ski Club, and a quiet loner in school who lacked direction until a ski accident rendered him immobile for six months. He began drawing from his bed while healing.

Brown commenced classes at the San Francisco Art Institute and stayed for the duration of his formal art education, earning a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts in 1988 and a Master of Fine Arts in 1990. He continued studying in China and New York, and for the following 20 years Brown resisted selling his work to collectors, preferring to keep his bodies of work together. 

In 2019 the Nevada Museum of Art installed his solo exhibition Sine Cere, across 3 of their expansive gallery spaces and purchased Sine Cere, the title piece, one of the large 8 foot radius circle drawings for their permanent collection.

A large body of Brown’s work was featured in Tilting the Basin, the Nevada Museum of Art survey exhibition of contemporary artists working in the state of Nevada in 2016, which also traveled to a second Museum location in Las Vegas in 2017. His work is also in the permanent collection of the Nevada Arts Council, and the newly founded Clear Creek Collection at Lake Tahoe.

The quality of Brown’s work was acknowledged with the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation artist’s award in 2017.