James Andrew Brown has had a long career full of accomplishments; starting with his hard-earned BFA from Calvin College and MFA from Western Michigan University. Brown has earned many awards and fellowships that led him to William Patterson University (New Jersey) as an associate professor of fine art. Brown says, “I intend to develop awareness and to explore the elements of war with one another in society.” Brown has also created sculptures and performance pieces as well as paintings, drawings and installations. What you can expect to find in Brown’s work is a raw assemblage consisting of energetic brush strokes and collages, congregated by mediums - one can’t wholly recognize - all compounded into a perfect story that can be felt in your spine. The message is clear, family and culture, all squeezed in tight. As an African-American artist, it is apparent that Brown deals with race, but not in a way that displays the paintings as a protest, or directing it at people and their prejudices. It’s more like it is addressed to our directions, as a human culture, to suppress the topic of race and avoid its delicacy. We live in a duplicitous world, but Brown’s message is direct and blunt, which makes his work uniquely important now. Brown’s work can be found in prestigious collections as well as museums. We at Detour believe his radical work stands as tall in the quality of work as Dubuffet, Basquiat, Twombly and the like.