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Browne was born in Britain and received a BFA (Hons) in Painting from the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in London in 1982. After moving to New Zealand he attended Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland and completed his Masters of Fine Arts here in 1999. Browne has exhibited widely in both New Zealand and the UK, and he has four times been a finalist in the Wallace Arts Awards. His work is held in many private collections internationally and locally, as well as in the Royal Overseas League, London, The James Wallace Arts Trust Collection, Auckland, and the Parliamentary Collection, in Wellington. Browne plays with paint with the enthusiasm of a child, yet with the knowledge of art traditions such as Abstract Expressionism. The celebration and contemplation of colour is similar to the work of Latvian-born Jewish American painter Mark Rothko. A sense of scale is communicated through this work – the stretch of the human hand and
the span of the arm are measured as the orange sweep of paint cuts across the split boarded panel.