BIO
David J Brown is an independent curator, master gardener, kiteboarding enthusiast, and museum administrator who has worked with hundreds of artists/creatives and has organized more than seventy-five large-scale exhibitions and community projects. Brown operated an art studio for fifteen years, spending some of his free time helping other artists realize their projects and that hands-on experience informed his career. Brown served as the Director of Exhibitions at the Maryland Institute, College of Art; Curator at the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; Chief Curator and HOME House Project director at the Southeaster Center for Contemporary Art; and the founding Deputy Director of Art at the Taubman Museum. He was the guest curator of special projects for the Smithsonian Institution’s No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum in 2018. Brown has worked independently since 2010.

One of his initiatives, the HOME House Project: the Future of Affordable Housing challenged over 800 individuals and teams around the globe to address creative affordable housing. This multi-year initiative traveled to 10 cities and resulted in a book that he edited, distributed by MIT Press. HHP inspiried the Enterprise Foundation's billion dollar Green Building Initiative. You can find more info on this site.

 

Brown has served on multiple boards including the Washington Project for the Arts, the Roanoke Public Arts Commission, the Piedmont Environmental Alliance, and the Creative Corridors Design Review Committee. He was a founding member of Botswana, an alternative space for emerging artists in Washington, DC, and founding member of the Sons of Caviar. He served a three-year appointment to the Services to Artists committee for the annual national conferences of the College Art Association in Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC. He has served as reviewer for the National Arts Endowment grants. He was the co-founder and President of the nonprofit DENT Creative Reuse Center and Art Laboratory that closed its digital doors in 2025 and taught classes at the University of NC, School of the Arts and the Kansas City Art Institute.

(full resume available upon request)