John Brown was born in Sarnia, Ontario in 1953. He lived and worked in Toronto until his death in 2020. He graduated from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto and received a Bachelor of Arts, at the University of Guelph. Brown has been a presence on the Toronto art scene since the 1980s. Known for his slow, meticulous working process, Brown’s attention to detail has made his work widely collected by private individuals, corporations and public institutions across Canada. He employs a process of applying oil paint to a panel and scraping it off leaving a residual history of the work. Brown likes to create works that reveal themselves through the history of their development. He has been known to take up to a year to create some paintings. His works have been exhibited internationally and have been collected by the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa, Claridge Collection, Montreal, Cadillac Fairview Corporation, Donovan Collection, Granite Club, Mercantile Bank, Montréal, Oakville Galleries, Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt, Royal Bank of Canada, Sunlife, TD Canada Trust, Bank of Montréal, The National Club and Torys. Photo: Lauren Barless