Statement
When I was younger, I believed being southern was obviously linked with being religious. This assumption and main-stream media’s condescending picture of southern personalities led me in my teenage years to wash myself of my identity founded in southern values. Examining what it means to be raised in the southern community of Northwest Florida, my experiences are related to how the identity I tried to abandon persists in and influences my thinking today.
The camera’s unique abilities of documentation and forced perspective are a cornerstone of my process; I am an insider looking in and showing the viewer what I see. Using embroidery in my work – a practice common in the women in my family but not passed down to me – is my way of forcefully claiming and reinterpreting what it means to be a southern-raised woman while leaving religion behind.
My work questions the stigmatization of southern culture. What traits smeared by stereotype need to be defended, and what problems masked by stereotype need to be addressed? By showing and re-interpreting my story – creating visibility for communities like my own – the rural southeast can be approached with genuine care first and foremost rather than just criticism or pity.
Bio
Brittani Brown is an artist raised in Mossy Head, FL and based in Orlando, FL. She received her B.F.A. in Studio Art in 2021 and her M.F.A. in Emerging Media: Studio Art and Design in 2025 – both from the University of Central Florida. Her work examines what it means to be raised as a Southern woman and a Southern person turned from religion while referencing her childhood experiences in Walton County, Florida. She expresses this narrative using photography, textile arts, and new digital media. She has been awarded a Graduate Teaching Assistantship and the College of Arts and Humanities 2024-2025 Award for Outstanding Graduate Creative Work at the University of Central Florida. Brittani has participated in several group art exhibitions including the Inaugural National Juried Graduate Exhibition at the University of Mississippi, part I of A Penny in Your Pocket at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts Gallery in Knoxville, TN., Fresh Squeezed 8 at the Morean Gallery of St. Petersburg, FL, and the ArtFields annual regional exhibition in Lake City, South Carolina.