Painter Cecily Brown works at the intersection of figuration and abstraction: She fills her monumental canvases with intimations of body parts and virtuosic, gestural brushstrokes that resolve more or less clearly into art history–inspired scenes. Brown draws on a range of compositional tenets including the formal planes of Neoclassicism, the vigor of Abstract Expressionists such as Willem de Kooning, and the haunting, fractured forms of Francis Bacon.

Her paintings become intense, kaleidoscopic evocations of atmosphere and bodily experience. The artist studied at the Slade School of Art. She rose to prominence at the same time as the provocative Young British Artists, yet she kept her paintings decidedly separate from the movement. Brown’s powerful formalism won her fans around the world, and she has shown in cities including New York, London, Hong Kong, and Berlin.

Her work belongs in the collections of the British Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, among others. Brown also maintains a celebrated drawing practice. Among the most expensive living female artists, her work has sold for seven figures on the secondary market.