Meet John Brooks | Artist and Poet

We had the good fortune of connecting with John Brooks and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi John, what role has risk played in your life or career?
Risk taking simply for its own sake seems foolish and pointless; taking calculated risks that are based in knowledge, experience, and thoughtfulness, however, is perhaps the only way to truly grow. That something must break — or certainly bend — in order for things to change seems like a law of nature we simply must accept. In my early life, until my mid-20s, I was a competitive golfer, and as peculiar as it might sound, my experiences with learning the game and honing my skills have been quite useful with regard to my work as an artist. Golf taught me about the value of patience, knowing when to make a move and when to wait, and how to pay close attention to what my particular strengths and weaknesses are. I’ve been working as an artist now for two decades, but my work really started to come together when I examined carefully what my particular interests and weaknesses and strengths were, rather than simply trying to figure out what I thought I “ought” to be doing. It was risky to make work that felt more deeply aligned with my individual self, but doing so profoundly changed my work and also the trajectory of my career. I know that artists and creatives must always be willing to explore and take risks, otherwise our work will become stale and repetitive; it is often the risk that makes the work feel alive, at least for me. Risk is something of which I’m aware both in the studio and in my daily existence, particularly in recent months, as I just moved to Los Angeles late last summer after a decade in Louisville, Kentucky. Nearly every aspect of my life has changed, and as scary as that has been, it has also felt personally and professionally correct.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Nothing worthwhile is easy! It has taken me a long time to get here. I make paintings and drawings and am a writer; I have worked as an artist for twenty years, but it has really only been in the last six or seven years where there has been a real convergence of ideas, energy, and opportunity. There were many years where that wasn’t the case, but that doesn’t mean those years were wasted. Living in London and Chicago then, I looked at a lot of art in those years, and learned so much. Those lessons and memories will never vanish. Skill and viewpoint are necessary if you want to be an artist, but I think that being an artist is also simply a disposition; it’s a way of looking at and existing in the world. To be an artist is to be hungry, to be curious, and to ask questions without necessarily expecting an answer. In recent years, my practice has been split evenly between making drawings with colored pencils and oil paintings. The learning never ceases, and there is never any arrival. My skills with and knowledge of oil paint have grown tremendously over the years, but the more I learn, the more I understand the potentialities oil paint has; in other words, the more I know, the more possibilities I see. Any painter is always learning to paint. That’s exciting and humbling. That sense of searching is part of the pleasure of being an artist, and part of the point. My work is figurative; my imagery comes from photographs, some of which I take myself and some of which are found. A few years ago, I had been thinking of my work as a kind of record celebrating and documenting community and connections, with an emphasis on Queerness, but I now think of the work as being bigger than that. The work is, in some way, about history. History is about accumulation — stories, people, events, movements — but it is also just as much about loss. We are living in a time where there is more information than ever, yet we seem more confused and jumbled than ever. My work, with references essentially collaged from my personal life, art history, politics, cinema, literature, and other places, reflects that reality. At the moment, I am most excited that on the heels of my first solo museum show, “Tell Me if the Lovers Are Losers,” which closed in December at the North Carolina Museum of Art Winston-Salem, I have two paintings hanging for the next year in the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh juxtaposed and in conversation with works by Max Beckmann, Lovis Corinth, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, three of my artistic heroes. My Standard Poodle Ludwig, who is eleven, is even named after Kirchner!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Having moved here in August, I am still new to L.A., so I am still learning! L.A. has so much to offer, particularly if you’re not in a hurry. I think people sometimes come here for three days and expect to understand the city, and that’s just not possible. Everything in L.A. takes a long time, but if you have time for things to unfold, the magic of this place will reveal itself. No matter what, the light and the flora will always beguile. Most of my better friends are also interested in art, so we’d definitely spend some time at museums and galleries: LACMA, The Hammer, the Norton-Simon, the Getty, David Zwirner, Hauser + Wirth, Anat Ebgi, David Kordansky, Regen Projects, Noon Projects, Night Gallery, Lisson, and others. I’m into cinema, particularly Film Noir, so we might catch something at the Egyptian, the Aero, or the Vista. I live near the junction of East Hollywood, Silver Lake, and Los Feliz, so we’d walk around the neighborhood and stop at Maru or Intelligentsia for coffee and conversation; I’ve met a lot of nice people there. A hike in Griffith Park would be a necessity. Do people know that during the week you can park at the Observatory for free before noon? Don’t tell everyone. We’d also hit up Akbar, Bar Stella, and maybe WiSpa to counteract our cocktails. I love good food and I love to cook, but I must confess that I have been so busy with the minutiae from my move that I haven’t yet really explored too many restaurants. Saffy’s is an early favorite! I love the sea, so a day at the ocean would be a must, but I am still learning where to go. My dog and I went to Leo Carrillo a few months ago, and while it was beautiful, next time I know to pay attention the tide schedule. More than anything, I’d love to meet the peerless Joni Mitchell — perhaps my friend and I might get lucky.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I have to give thanks and praise to Phillip March Jones and Maria Owen at MARCH, the New York City gallery that represents my drawings. I’ve had two shows with them (in 2022 and 2024), and they’ve been so supportive and enthusiastic about my work. They’ve also been willing and open to ideas that were perhaps not the most practical, like last year when I wanted to show the first fourteen panels from my continuous drawing “Islands Are Not Forever.” I began this work in 2023; each panel is 75 x 50 inches, and the images continue to unfold, panel to panel, rather like a frieze, or a scroll, and this is a project I plan to keep working on indefinitely, for the rest of my life. Despite the logistical challenges, Phillip and Maria were all in, and we put together a show I think we were all proud of.

Website: https://johnedwardbrooks.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/narcissusandgoldmund/?hl=en

Other: https://www.cortlandreview.com/issue-93/john-brooks/

Image Credits
Tag Christof (portrait of me)
Cary Whittier (install shot of drawings with lights on ceiling)
Mindy Best (museum shot with colorful sculpture on the ground)
Cliff Dossel (install shot of museum painting show with curved bench in the middle)