Kyle Browne, mixed media artist and art educator
The artfulness of oysters, her upcoming solo show, and surprising reactions to her surreal art
In A Moveable Feast, Hemmingway recalled, “As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”
Then there’s Jim Gaffigan, who pondered how humans came to eat oysters in the first place: “I found a rock with a snot in it… what does it taste like? Pneumonia.” As a person who loves food, I would like to be more Hemmingway-esque on the matter of oysters. However, I am team Gaffigan, despite my best efforts to cultivate a taste for the pearly shellfish. It seems that I have ostraconophobia, but only a partial case because I was attracted to Kyle Browne’s illustrations, sculptures, and other artistic expressions. One of her go-to subjects is sea life, especially…oysters.
Just in case you didn’t know, ostraconophobia is the fear of shellfish. And here is a diagram of an oyster, just in case those of you who are oyster lovers know what you are….gulp...eating, including a part that rhymes with “heinous.”
A note before we move on: In the interview below, Kyle mentions female parts and some of her work features such parts. Here’s our recent conversation.
Tell me about your upcoming show.
It’s called Seaworthy Seductions: A Taste of Intimacy, and it opens April 15,, 2023 and runs through June 11 at the Gallery at Spencer Lofts in Chelsea, MA. It’s a solo show that will include mixed media, painting, drawings, interactive elements, stop-motion animations, and sculptures. It’s about reconnecting to an innate wildness that I believe exists within us all.
The opening on April 15 will be a celebration. I'm planning to have music curated by Jukebox Events and will be serving oysters from Real Oyster Cult—not that you want those [I’ll bring my own food, thanks]. For this show, I am bringing together the spiritual and deeply emotional side of my artwork with the playful, fun, colorful, and absurd side. Themes include mandalas, which work well with seafood platters, as well as sailor’s valentines. The pieces that I'm exhibiting are my love letters to the ocean. You can sign up for the April 15 art opening here.
I call the sculptures I’m showing, intimate objects. They incorporate what I collect along the shore—shells, found objects—with air-dry clay and paint. When people see them, they want to look closer and often touch them or hold them. These sculptures exude a sense of intimacy.
In my installation, Shucked Raw, Serve Yourself I invite visitors to create and contemplate these delectables into their own personal raw bar plate. Eating a raw oyster is perhaps the closest thing humans can do to consummate their relationship with the sea.
So much of your art focuses on oysters and to a lesser extent, shrimp.
The overarching theme of my work is about the integration and interconnectedness of humans and nature. I started with drawings incorporating the human form with nature. I’m an ocean person, and during the pandemic, I began eating more oysters, largely to support local oyster farmers who didn't have anywhere to sell their oysters. I love eating oysters because it’s basically eating the ocean. It’s the closest thing that you can do to be a part of the ocean, which is a meaningful environment to me.
At that time, I was working in South Boston often and would go to Castle Island and collect shells. I also found an incredible old varietal of oyster that I didn’t know about. They are bigger and have thicker shells, and apparently they migrated to these waters from Maine. Oysters are impressive marine creatures. They're so resilient and prehistoric.
Once I started looking into the belly of an oyster, I realized how incredibly beautiful they are: the translucence of color and the different layers. I started thinking about the metaphor of the oyster and the vagina. At first, I thought that is so overdone, I'm not going to do that. But then I started creating these sculptures that I call bivulvas. They are the integration of oysters and the femme anatomy. I also added tongues to some pieces to bring some fun and humor into them because we need more laughter in the world.
I was able to expand on this idea for a virtual show at Shelter In Place Gallery during the pandemic. I created a raw bar in miniature. It looks like it’s 20 feet tall but it’s really about 2 feet tall. It had mignonette, lemons, and pools of liquid that I made from resin. The raw bar piece led me to create shrimp cocktail. I cast my own fingers to create them!
You seem to want to provoke thought and reactions with your art.
This work is not for everyone. I love using subversion in my work. I will create something that draws people in with its beauty, and then they realize, oh, wait, what am I looking at? It can be surprising, and people react to that, and some will get the deeper message and deeper layers of meaning within the work.
A common reaction to the sculptures is that people think they are real. I was showing my oyster work at an oyster festival in Maine and people were trying to give me food tickets! Someone tried to stab a fork into the shrimp! It was funny. The reactions I get can be surprise, laughter, and people wanting to touch the art to see if it’s real. When I was doing that festival, I created a touch platter so people could do just that.
What is your optimal oyster consumption experience?
I was hiking with a friend in the woods along the ocean. We found a rock to sit on overlooking the water in the sun. We shucked our oysters in situ and enjoyed them paired with a French bubbly rosé.
Also, last summer I visited an oyster farm in Maine, Ferda Farms. Chris, the owner, took me out on his boat to flip the oyster cages and then we went to the floating workstation on the water. He had a few oysters from the cages and shucked a perfect pearlescent oyster for me, right out of the ocean.
Do you have any oyster tattoos?
Funny you ask, because two weeks ago I had this flash in my brain that I might have to get an oyster tattoo, like it was a message from above! [I told her I have a talented family member who could create a splendid oyster tattoo.]
What do you say to people, like me, who tell you that they don't like oysters or they just don't get it?
I would steer you toward the shrimp [she said jokingly]. My art isn't for everyone. I love to make beautiful objects, but art that doesn't provoke a reaction is usually boring. If someone has a negative reaction or isn’t into it, it's still eliciting an emotion and that's what art is supposed to do.
My work is not necessarily about consumption of oysters. It's about the deeper layers of nature and humanity and how we're all interconnected.
Do you have a favorite depiction of the oyster either in literature or art?
There’s a quote I resonate with:
An oyster is an island unto itself full of rocks and earth,
tide-swept marsh and rain-washed forest,
salt and sun: the taste of a place in one bite. Source
Also, I like the book The Big Oyster by Mark Kurlansky. It explains the role of oysters in the history of New York City. Oysters created equity across classes because everybody ate them.
Tell me about your art path.
I grew up in Gloucester, MA, on Rocky Neck, one of the oldest art colonies in America. I have been making art since I was very young. My mom loves to tell the story that when I was five years old, I asked her for art lessons, not arts and crafts lessons.
When I was a junior in high school and discovered I could go to art school, I almost freaked out—I didn't realize that I could actually go to college for art! I studied illustration at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, but then decided I didn’t want to make art commercially. I became interested in education and fine art, which led me to many places: the West Coast and artist residencies in New Zealand. In my late 20s, I returned to the Boston area for grad school at Lesley University and unexpectedly I stayed and have been here ever since working in education and creating my art.
What is your main goal as an art educator?
I got into art education because I wanted to share what I love with people because it's made me appreciate and enjoy life. I’ve worked primarily with underserved populations in urban schools and strived to create more access to art. I was a Boston public high school art teacher for the past several years but left full-time teaching to pursue my art. I still work with teens and strive to show them that they can use critical thinking and technical skills learned through art to make a living in the creative industry.
What is the best advice that you've received as an artist?
Don't make art for anyone else. That can sound selfish, but trying to fit into a standard doesn't work because your fire and your passion isn't necessarily going to be there, and people can sense that.
Also, believing in the “lone genius” idea is really limiting. We hear stories of the lone artist who has a breakthrough moment in the studio and now they are a genius. It doesn’t work that way and can put so much pressure on young artists to think they have to do it all themselves or that they will have a flash of brilliance and “make it.” The back stories of artists tend to be much different than that and involve many iterations, collaborations, perseverance, dedication, and working many side hustles.
If money, time, and space were not issues, what would you want to create?
There’s a fascinating old, abandoned ferry in the Boston Harbor that I discovered while paddle boarding. I would love to create an immersive world in it, touching on all the senses. I’d invite other artist friends who work in sound, installation, and lighting to add to it, and then throw a big party. It could be like a labyrinth where people could go in and have different sensory explorations in each room. You’d have to get there by boat, which would be part of the experience.
Do you like to cook?
Yes. I love poached eggs. A favorite breakfast of mine is poached eggs with wilted kale, avocado, and fresh chopped tomatoes, sprinkled with nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper, and with buttered bread. [Poached eggs are not dissimilar to oysters texturewise!]
Lightening round questions
Who are some of the creative people that you admire? James Turrell, Cecilia Vicuńa, Haruki Murakami, and Georgia O'Keeffe for how she lived her life as an artist. Also, the stop-motion animator PES, William Kentridge, Kara Walker, and I love Beyoncé.
Favorite ice cream flavor. Strawberry rhubarb made by FoMu.
Most memorable meal. I go clamming every year when I’m at an island in the Penobscot Bay in Maine and dig up my own dinner! I make steamers with garlic and onion, either beer or a little white wine, and butter. I love the intimate experience of harvesting my own meal and sharing it with others.
You're hosting a dinner party for six people living or dead. Who is coming and what are you serving? Steve Irwin, Tom Robbins, Hunter S. Thompson, Amelia Earhart, Cleopatra, and Ashley Longshore. There are a few wild cards in there that would make it a very interesting night!
I would create a decadent board with fine cheeses, good bread, bakers crackers, smoked mussels and salmon, olives, grilled fresh vegetables, and other simple finger foods along with an earthy Pinot Noir. We're not sitting down for a formal dinner, we're interacting and tasting. Dessert would be homemade warm molten lava cakes with vanilla bean ice cream and raspberries.
Favorite piece of art that you own. It’s a sentimental abstract painting I inherited from my godmother. It always hung at the end of her bed and now it’s the only art piece hanging in my living room.
Most captivating museum visit. MASS MoCA is my favorite art museum, but I'm going to go with the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Both, you can spend days at!
Palate & Palette menu
Here’s what I would serve if Kyle came to dinner, which she is invited to do:
Oyster mushroom tacos
Seaweed salad
Pineapple upside-down cake
I'm not a big fan of eating oysters either! I applaud Kyle for following her vision and wish her luck with her solo exhibit.