Joanne Brooker Studio

Art is my language. This is how I interact, how I make comment, how I reflect back the influences, experiences and situations that affect

 

me. To do this, I use the tools I have a connection to, primarily acrylics, oils and ink.

 

Acrylics allow me to work in semi-opaque layers, creating fine detail, working quickly to capture an exacting vision.

 

Oils attract me with intense colours, creamy textures and unpredictability. With them I experiment, working to capture an emotion, an essence.

 

Ink is exacting, bold, and graphic; this medium fulfils my need for clarification, negative space and the haiku of line.

 

 

My work is strongly influenced by the imagery available to me as a child. Comics, graphic novels, TV cartoons and fantasy.

 

They taught me economy of line, visual narrative, layout, animation and character creation.

 

Studying the illustrations from Alice in Wonderland, the Arabian Nights, Hans Christian Anderson, taught me colour and detail, the delicacy and

 

power of the black line, the joy of grotesquery and the connections between illustration and words.

 

 

 

All of these skills were brought to my ten years as an editorial artist for newspapers, creating political and social comment.

 

On leaving the media world in 2001, I travelled, discovering a new context for my work. My art broke through language and cultural barriers in

 

China, South America, Asia, Iran and the Middle East. I discovered my visual political comment, acceptable in Australia, had a very different

 

context within these countries. This situation has added a new dimension to my work, an area I am continuing to explore.

 

I surround myself with images from artists creating the dark, the surreal, the comic, the powerful line, the challenging attitude and technical brilliance.

 

The work of Sebastian Kruger, Michael Hussar, Takashi Murakami, Francis Bacon, Rolf Steadman, Marjan Satrapi, Art Spiegelman and myriads

 

of outsider art, graffiti, movie posters, contemporary Japanese art, tattoo and manipulated photo imagery.

 

My work features almost exclusively, faces.

 

Faces are the avatars of character, emotion and comment. They are the most demanding of subjects, challenging and engaging. I never tire of their endless variables and their personal connections to myself and the viewer.

 

 

Each image I create comes to realisation only after a great deal of consideration.

 

The intensity of my imagination often means this can be a fast transition, other times it takes time to fully form.

 

The actual technical creation of the image is immediate and fast.

 

I love to work with acrylics and inks, however, oils are my passion, satisfying my need for spontaneous expression.

 

Spontaneity is where the honesty of my work lies. The influences that excite me, the interaction with my work

 

and the drama and drive behind my vision.