| Sep | Sep |
| 2 | 5 |
Quint Contemporary Art will be participating in this year’s ART SAN DIEGO | Contemporary Art Fair. Come by and visit us at booths 25 & 33!
September 2 – 5, 2010
Hilton San Diego Bayfront San Diego, CA
Kelsey Brookes intricately assembles large iconlink images from countless minute paintings of beings and things that maybe related to the central subject or may not. Inside the form of a trumpeting elephant’s head or a dancing female figure, the viewer may come upon cartoonish creatures with boxy mouths and big ears, snippets of text, eyeballs with links to Buddhist and Hindu iconography, and a wide assortment of other curiosities. The overall effect is pleasingly maximalist.
Brookes’s technique suggests affinities with Ryan McGinness and Shepard Fairey. And like those artists, Brookes is a crossover figure. Straddling the worlds of graphic design and art, he has attracted a fan base from the surf and skate cultures for his illustration work. But this exhibition, “Bigger, Brighter, Bolder,” with 12 large paintings and an assortment of tiny ones, demonstrated that Brookes isn’t content simply to adapt his established style to canvas. The imagery here was looser, more painterly and the array of symbolic forms more expansive.
Kelsey Brookes is a former biochemist who attributes his raw style to an education system “that refuses to teach scientists to draw.” He abandoned biochemistry because, “I thought I was going to be there for a few months to get myself some money. Three years later I was left wondering if I had become what I always despised – the funny guy at the water cooler … except not so funny. I was the confused, not so funny guy at the water cooler.” Science’s loss is art’s gain. The work’s potency arguably lie’s in the way its clash of ancient and ultra-modern references downplay the sex and death, which are featured heavily in the work. Brookes describes his art as “an unrefined and, some would say, unskilled mix of sex, comedy and animals which is derived from a true passion for all three, except not necessarily all at the same time.”
Kelsey Brookes work exhibits a strong and unique interplay with figure, abstract forms and text. Brookes’ work increases the sense of awe and wonder found in his signature style with a “loosening” of the figure – where once the female forms had sharply defined contours and rendered details, they are now symbolic canvases for his seemingly limitless constellation of brightly colored micro scenes and characters. The work presents a captivating aura – from a far the small characters, shapes and patterns read as a more or less abstract swirl of color. Up close, the smiley faces and characters engage in all sorts of activity rewarding the careful viewer with a clear sense of joy. This plethora of reference points is usually executed with a central figure surrounded with an aura of objects, animals and plants.
Brookes has been featured in numerous pop culture and design publications such as GQ, Modern Painters, Paper, Juxtapoz, Beautiful Decay, Dazed and Confused, Re:Up, and HUCK. The artist has also teamed up for illustration work with the likes of RVCA, VANS, and Insight 51 as well as musical sensation Grand Ole Party. Brookes’ work is also embraced by the California surf-scene, something that devours his free time.