Promises Land

Australian multidisciplinary artist James Brown’s much-anticipated Sydney debut, PROMISES LAND, invites audiences into a vivid, volatile world where abstraction collides with figuration, and the sacred dances with the absurd. Known internationally for his immersive works that blur the boundaries between art, design, and architecture, Brown brings his multidisciplinary lens to a maximalist vision rendered on a minimalist palette.

In this new body of work, Brown explores the emotional terrain between memory and myth, existential dread and fragile hope. PROMISES LAND asks: What were you promised? What did you carry? Where did you land? These poetic provocations unfurl across canvases loaded with sand, pigment, and feeling - each piece a shrine to the chaotic beauty of being alive.

“I’m interested in the quiet madness of it all - the promises we make to ourselves and each other, the absurdity of meaning, and the flashes of beauty that keep us tethered to hope.”

- James Brown

James Brown

Drawing from spiritual symbology, mythological reinvention, post-colonial critique, and pop-cultural sabotage, Brown constructs a rebellious new visual language. His materials are charged: graffiti-poetry, sacred vessels, neon gods, and still-life florals jostle for space, emerging from the wreckage of a world in crisis with humour, reverence, and riotous colour.

Brown’s creative practice is fuelled by endless curiosity and restless questioning. He asks if originality is still possible in a cultural desert, whether AI can replace the artist, and whether nostalgia is a refuge or a trap. Amid the ruins, beauty endures.

As seen in major international venues like Palais de Tokyo and SFMOMA, and in atmospheric collaborations with Africola, Mexicola Bali, and Mandala Club Singapore, Brown’s work transcends genre and geography. In PROMISES LAND, he draws us into a hallucinatory state - a promised land that was never a destination, but a feeling.