"If you choose to fail us we will never forgive you"...Jeffrey Equality Brooks
Portraying Women Art Show
WHO: Featuring: jeffrey equality brooks, Monica Brown, Faith Humphrey Hill, and Jesse Howard
WHEN:
Exhibition Dates: Oct 9 - Nov 15, 2024
WHERE:Visual Arts Gallery, at Governor’s State University 1 University Parkway, University Park, IL 60484 building F
WHAT: contemporary figurative works done in non-traditional media.
From Jeffrey...
I’m excited to bring my work to the Visual Arts Gallery. “Portraying Women” is a group show with 4 artists who … you guessed it didn’t you? :) It’s a great-looking show I’m stoked to be part of it. Those who know my work know that my pieces are mostly built up from spraying automotive paints with mega-detailed cut one-time-use stencils. In this artwork, you’ll also see 24k gold, silver and copper leaf, gems, stacks of resin, and of course, you’ll see my obvious love affair with hot rod paints with oodles of metal flakes and candied paints. You can click into any of these images to get more info about materials and sizes as well as more detailed photos. To purchase contact, me directly. Before i show you this work i’d like to say, in short, my goal is to produce compulsively “lookable” paintings that make you say “shit i’ve felt like that.” My work at its core has this goal and reminds us to beware of thoughts that are not your own, while we hunt for genuine connection. Also, a thank you to the team at Visual Arts Gallery for including me with these other amazing artists. (His narrative continues below...)
"I refuse to accept these horrors as a divine plan", by Jeffrey Equality Brooks
These are two of the seven halos created for this series and are 40”x40”. This series is built off a pearlized and aluminum paint base that was hit with a metal flake. Subsequent layers (oh, which there are a ton of) are transparent or “candies”, this again affords the viewer a chance to peer into the paint to see the sparkle below. Halos are 24k gold and copper, then the pieces are finished off with an automotive clear coat, which I think looks awesome, but it’s pretty hard to photograph.
Here (link ) is a super small video of how I make these paintings.
The topic of the paintings in my halo series focuses on the difficult necessity of active choice when moving from generational beliefs and traditions. All the while, completely acknowledging that I’m relying on arcane visual language to add gravitas
.i refuse to accept these horrors as a divine plan: is my response to very common adage we hear every time something bad or tragic happens, or the ubiquitous inshallah.
if you choose to fail us now we will never forgive you: This one is the most recent i’ve done in the series and was one of those “i’m gonna get this painting right or die in this room trying.” I’m gonna suggest that you click on the image if you’d like to get a deeper read on the visual vocabulary being used here and see some details why this one was such a challenge to make. ###