• John Brooks

    Nothing's Gonna Touch You in These Golden Years, 2022

    Graphite, colored pencil, pastel on paper

    50 x 38.5 inches

  • A drawing by John Brooks titled a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone, dated 2022.

    John Brooks

    A Smooth Round Stone as Small as a World and as Large as Alone, 2022

    Graphite, colored pencil, pastel on paper

    50 x 38.5 inches

  • A drawing by John Brooks titled Live This Day, dated 2021.

    John Brooks

    Live This Day, 2021

    Graphite, colored pencil, pastel on paper

    50 x 38.5 inches

  • A drawing by John Brooks titled A clear moon, because of his fear of foxes, I go with my lover boy -Matsuo Bashō, (1644-1694), dated 2021.

    John Brooks

    A Clear Moon, Because Of His Fear Of Foxes, I Go With My Lover Boy -Matsuo Bashō, 2021

    Graphite, colored pencil, pastel on paper

    50 x 38.5 inches

  • A drawing by John Brooks titled Beiruti, dated 2021.

    John Brooks

    Beiruti, 2021

    Graphite, colored pencil, pastel on paper

    50 x 38.5 inches

  • A drawing by John Brooks titled I Used to Be Free, I Used to Be Seventeen, dated 2022.

    John Brooks

    I Used to Be Free, I Used to Be Seventeen, 2021

    Graphite, colored pencil, pastel on paper

    50 x 38.5 inches

I See This Echoing

John Brooks

April 13 -May 28, 2022

Selected Solo Exhibitions

Thinking About Danger
John Brooks
Luis de Jesus
2022

Tomorrow is Still June
John Brooks
University of Kentucky Medical Center
2022

We All Come and Go Unknown
John Brooks
Moremen Gallery
2021

A Map of Scents
John Brooks
Moremen Gallery
2019

Non-Arrivals
John Brooks
O Art
2019

It Is So Beautiful Here
John Brooks
Swanson Contemporary
2015

Bei Nacht
John Brooks
The Green Building Gallery
2011

Looking For a City
John Brooks
Bicha Gallery
2009

Selected Group Exhibitions

HOT SUMMER PT. 2
Swivel Gallery
2023

My Velvet Shadow
CLAMP
2023

Drawers
Adult Contemporary at OZ Arts
2022

Pop Stars!
21C Museum Hotel Chicago
2022

Summer Stage: ACT TWO
Auxier Kline
2021

Summer Stage: ACT ONE
Auxier Kline
2021

How Have You Been?
Quintana Behringer
2020

New Work
Moremen Gallery
2020

SPRING/BREAK NYC
2020

Revolutionary: Being American Today
Kennedy Heights Arts Center
2020

Launch 2020
Moremen Gallery
2020

In the In-between
Smush Gallery
2019

Fresh Paint
Moremen Gallery
2019

Imagined Monuments
Metro Hall
2019

Don’t Turn Around Don’t Look Down
Quappi Projects
2021

Artists in Our Midst
Kaviar Forge & Gallery
2017

Word & Image
Kaviar Forge & Gallery
2017

Queer Voices
OPEN Community Center
2017

Demographically Speaking
Lexington Art League
2017

Anima Spiritus Corpus
Maggie and Rose
2007

Visual artist and poet John Brooks explores themes of identity, memory, death and place while considering questions of contemplation, the expression of emotion, the transformative power and the emotional resonance of particular experiences and what Max Beckmann described as “the deepest feeling about the mystery of being.

John Brooks was born in central Kentucky in 1978. He studied Political Science and English Literature at the College of Charleston, South Carolina, with continuing education in art at Central St. Martins and the Hampstead School of Art in London, England. His work has been exhibited across the United States and Europe, and is included in the collections of the 21C Museum Hotels, Grinnell College Museum of Art, among others. Most recently, Garth Greenwell penned a feature article about Brooks for the The New Yorker titled “A Kentucky Painter’s Travels in Queer Time.”

Download full CV

The Yale Review
September 18, 2023
How Emily Wilson Reimagined Homer
By Emily Greenwood

The New York Review of Books
April 6, 2023
Drowned Worlds
By Phillip Lopate

Kaleidoscopic No. 14
March 16, 2023
John Brooks, Pt. 1
By Leonardo Bravo

UnderMain
June 14, 2022
Review: John Brooks in NYC
By Boshko Boshkovic

brutjournal
June 3, 2022
From Golf To Glowing: John Brooks’s Luminous Portraits Make A Vital Connection
By Edward M. Gómez

WFPL
May 13, 2022
Artistic inspiration and national recognition coalesce for Louisville visual artist John Brooks
By Stephanie Wolf

Whitewall
May 5, 2022
John Brooks Echoes a Love of Subjects, Process, Queerness
By Andrew Huff

The Yale Review
April 22, 2022
Three Queer Writers on Craft and Cruising
By Garth Greenwell, Richie Hofmann, & Carl Phillips 

The New Yorker
September 14, 2021
A Kentucky Artist’s Travels in Queer Time
By Garth Greenwell

 

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