“Play with purpose.”
This principle, attributed to Mitchell Rigie of Creative Breakthrough Lab, anchors Andreé Brown’s sculptural practice. It reframes making not as production, but as a sustained act of discovery. For Andreé, the studio becomes a space where fleeting impressions of the natural world are translated into the enduring weight of bronze and porcelain. In this Studio Narrative, we explore a practice defined by technical endurance and the preservation of ephemeral beauty.
I. The Journey of the Hand
Andreé’s commitment to a creative life began at the Rhode Island School of Design, though her education deepened most significantly through time spent in the kitchen and at the jeweler’s bench. These were not detours, but formative disciplines that shaped her patience, precision, and sensory awareness. Two decades of demanding physical work as a professional chef and jeweler refined her approach to form, instilling a deep respect for structures that require both endurance and exactitude.
Her relocation to New York City in 2006 marked a return to sculpture in its most deliberate form. Today, she applies the same jeweler’s discipline to her sculptural process, building, filing, and refining organic forms that move from the responsiveness of wax into the permanence of bronze.
II. The Symbiotic Studio
To enter Andreé’s studio is to encounter a layered rhythm of intentional practice. Her day begins with movement. A morning gym session, described as a “blur,” clears mental noise and establishes a physical cadence for the day. This is followed by administrative work focused on grants and open calls, preserving the studio itself as a protected space for making.
Once she transitions into sculpting, the environment becomes fully immersive. As she works in wax, she cooks, listens to audiobooks, and sustains a constant flow of narrative through sound. During her conversation with Founder Starah Dixon, she described how these external stories weave into what she calls the “sculpture story” unfolding on her bench, creating a symbiotic space where nourishment, narrative, and form evolve together.
III. A 360-Degree Conversation
Andreé does not approach sculpture as a fixed composition, but as an ongoing dialogue with material. Every work begins in wax, a medium chosen for its responsiveness and immediacy.
“The sculpture itself can take me on its own journey,” she explains. “Every day I come in, it is talking to me, telling me what is working and what needs to be developed.”
Her process is both additive and subtractive, guided by intuition and refinement. Deeply influenced by Asian art traditions, she holds the belief that no single angle dominates the work. The front is never more important than the back. Each piece demands a 360-degree engagement, an unfolding form that reveals itself differently from every perspective.
IV. The Power of Play
A defining element of Andreé’s practice is her relationship to humor and lightness. Shaped by her mother’s encouragement to meet the world with optimism, she looks for surprise within structure and play within discipline.
When overthinking enters the process, she returns to the instinctive clarity of play. This shift allows the work to move through uncertainty without rigidity. In this way, flow becomes intentional rather than accidental. The result is sculpture that holds both precision and ease, forms that offer a visual pause within the pace of contemporary life.
V. Scaling the Narrative
Looking ahead, Andreé’s practice continues to expand in both scale and ambition. She is actively moving toward larger studio environments and grant-supported work that will allow her to explore installation-based practice. Her vision is immersive, creating environments where the viewer does not simply observe a sculpture, but moves through it, entering a spatial narrative shaped by form, stillness, and atmosphere.
Preserving Perspective
As a Mitsooz Founding Artist, Andreé Brown embodies a rare convergence of discipline, intuition, and material intelligence. Each work carries the imprint of lived experience, bridging ephemeral observation and enduring form. When you acquire a piece from this collection, you are not simply bringing art into your space.
You are preserving a way of seeing.
✦ Explore the Andreé Brown Journey
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