Kelsey Brookes | Gradient Paintings

Kelsey Brookes' Gradient Paintings comprises the artist’s latest series exploring new ways to reflect how the perception of art is underpinned by biological systems and chemical reactions occurring in nature and the human body.  The content of these paintings stem from the scientist Heinrich Kluver’s discovery of form constants, which are a set of geometric patterns observed during altered states of consciousness or hallucination. There are four categories: lattices, cobwebs, spirals, and tunnels. His experiments analyzed subjects under the influence of psychoactive compounds like mescaline and their visual experiences – all followed one of those form constants.

Using a new foreground painting technique, Brookes’ meticulous linework, which is known for its continuous motion and concentric wobbly edges, begins to unravel and break away from their structures in gradients of blues, oranges, and yellows. 

Often characterized by the influence of his early years as a molecular biologist, Brookes bridges the worlds of art and science by showing the dichotomy of each discipline. His practice takes ideas and forms found in molecular structures, number sequences, and logic, and grants non-scientists access to the invisible world of atoms, which make up everything that ever has been or will be. Brookes has had solo exhibitions in San Diego, Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, London and Berlin and his work lives in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation.