Bio
Duncan Brown is a UK-based artist, born in the Midlands. He moved to London to study at Kingston University, completing a foundation in art & design and a degree in fine art.
After graduating, he spent a few years pursuing his art with shows in London before transitioning into a design career as the fledgling web emerged. Over two decades later, an art practice naturally began to resurface and in late 2019 Duncan quit design to become a full time artist.
Exploring themes of competing forces and balance, Duncan creates immersive abstract compositions that blend clean geometric shapes with gestural abstract marks. His current studio practice comprises mixed media works, primarily incorporating photography, transfer mediums, digital painting, and traditional acrylic techniques.
In 2025, he was shortlisted for The John Ruskin Prize, selected from nearly 3,000 entries for the 'From the Eye to the Hand' exhibition at Trinity Buoy Wharf in London. The previous year, his work featured in the Beep Painting Biennial, themed 'I Won't Stay in a World Without Love,' in Swansea. Recently, Duncan has participated in numerous exhibitions across the UK, including solo and group shows in London, Edinburgh, and Hastings.
Duncan currently lives and works by the sea in Hastings.
Exploring the space between analogue and digital, natural and constructed
Artist statement
My practice follows a circular process, navigating the spaces between the virtual and real world, digital and analogue, and the human-made and natural. I strive to balance opposites: gestural abstract marks with cleanly designed elements, and manufactured bold colours with natural, earthy tones.
Continuously collecting source material by observing unknowing collaborations and juxtaposed opposites in my local environment, I photograph these discoveries and bring them into my practice to wrestle with the inherent tensions and confront the polarities existing within our current culture. I believe my work demonstrates that competing forces can work together.
My process takes time and is one of experimentation and iteration: part accident, part intent, interchangeable and repeatable. I tend to start with photography and digital painting before transferring to a physical surface and blending with a variety of mixed media.
As I work through multiple cycles, layers build up and relief emerges on the surface. There's usually a point where I become lost in possibility. I realise I've reached the final phase when I've lost track of how I arrived at this point in the artwork and would struggle to reproduce the piece. There's always a possibility the process could repeat forever.
Exhibitions
Awards
2025 The John Ruskin Prize 2025 | shortlist
2024 The Beep Painting Biennial 2024 | longlist
2022 The Hastings Open - Hastings Museum and Art Gallery | shortlist
Solo Exhibitions
2025 New Work | School of Art and Design, East Sussex College Hastings
2023 Glowing Up | Collected Fictions, St Leonards on Sea
2023 Glow Up | One to Ten Gallery, St Leonards on Sea
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025 From the Eye to the Hand - The John Ruskin Prize | Trinity Buoy Wharf, London
2025 I won’t stay in a world without love - The Beep Painting Biennial | Aberystwyth 2025 University, Aberystwyth
2024 All I Want For Christmas is… PEACE | hARTslane Gallery, London
2024 10 Years | Project 78 Gallery, St Leonards on Sea
2024 Summer Salon | Detail Gallery, Edinburgh
2024 Show Off | Public art exhibition, Hastings & St Leonards on Sea
2024 Coastal Currents Arts Festival, open studios | Common Mormon Studios, Hastings
2024 The Beep Painting Biennial 2024 | Elysium Gallery, Swansea
2024 upSCALE | Project 78 Gallery, St Leonards on Sea
2023 Affordable Art Show | MOTH Gallery, St Leonards on Sea
2023 Coastal Currents Arts Festival, open studios | Common Mormon Studios, Hastings
2023 Of a Place | MOTH Gallery, St Leonards on Sea
2023 New Order New Chaos | The Observer Building, Hastings
2022 Coastal Currents Arts Festival, open studios | Common Mormon Studios, Hastings
2022 My Queen | Dirty Old Gallery, Hastings