Coakley Brown

Coakley Brown’s passion for art emerged during early childhood. She recalls in her earliest art memory, literally questioning the lines and experimenting in the space outside them. She found joy in copious paint application (and sometimes pasta) at Art Festivals in PA, and refuge in her school art program when her family moved to VA in the mid-1970s.

Though never straying from her artistic pursuits, love of learning and nature led her to a first career as a science teacher. Drawing upon this perspective, she explores, both through formal training and experimentation, the relationship between observation and her own artistic vision. Inspired by nature and stories that connect us to nature, her work is joyfully imaginative with a bold playfulness. As she works, she often considers how it is that it can be so difficult to understand and rediscover things we knew as children? She credits her time as a teacher and a parent as helping to keep her connected to seeing with the eyes of a child.

Her motivation, closely tied to a sense of play, comes from a gratefulness for the gift of life, a trueness to self, and a sense of wonder regarding the interaction of light within our natural world.

Coakley’s award-winning work has been recognized nationally and regionally by the American Impressionist Society, Plein Air Easton, Gloucester Arts Festival, Plein Air Suffolk, Tidelands Plein Air, Floyd Plein Air, Plein Air Westhampton, Coastal Virginia Plein Air, North Carolina Plein Air, and Paint Annapolis.