Ashes of roses, a pinkish grey colour that provided the name for a well-known 20th-century perfume and range of cosmetics by Bourjois of Paris, has a special resonance for Gemma Browne, acting as a conduit for the memories that are such an important engine for her creative process.

Browne remembers the name from Quentin Crisp’s memoir The naked civil servant in which he recounts that in the 1960s while working in advertising he created a poster for Coty’s Ashes of roses. Memory is of course nebulous, and as far as I can find Coty have never had a product with this name. To paraphrase playwright Tennessee Williams’ tragic heroine Blanche Dubois, magic is more important than realism....

...Flowers are often used as metaphors for young women in poetry and literature. The rapidly fading bloom of a rose and its comparison to the fleeting beauty of youth is contemplated and critiqued by Browne’s paintings. Her pools and patches of pink and brown paint fluidly combine, like makeup, to describe the skin of the women, who in 'Blossoms', 'Amber' and 'True' stare intensely in close-up. These and the other paintings of young women do not depict individuals, they are amalgams drawn from found images, their unsmiling looks atmospherically unsettling alongside the brightly coloured blooms. Browne describes them as portraits of female energy and their nearly-always-direct gaze is unerring.

(Excerpt from an Accompanying Text written by Cathy Lomax)