Roger Brown
Phyllis Kind Gallery
The title given to this show, “For Consenting Eyes Only . . . ,” appeared in the gallery’s back room on a cabinet door behind which was a painting Roger Brown calls Boy Startled while Jerking-Off in the Woods, or What’s the Use of Beating around the Bush?, 1985. What, indeed? Although Brown may have thought of this provocative painting as the core of his show, as the painting’s placement suggested, my interest lay elsewhere.
The fact is that I tend to locate Brown himself not in the bushes this painting contains. Rather, the gesture most characteristic of his work for me, its spiritual center,