Exploring the physicality of paint and surface textures, Dr Terri Brooks formally investigates natural mark making. With a leanness of technique and an innate feeling for surface textures, Brooks utilises her materials to produce rich and complex works that speak of creating art out of something humble and ordinary. Brooks states of her practice ‘My current challenge as an artist is to make paintings via the simplest means possible. Over time the content of my works has reduced so they are now mostly constructed with fundamental elements - black, white, dot and line, horizontals and verticals.’
Her paintings arise from an intuitive, repetitive process of mark making and layering informed by observations of natural environmental processes, including weathering, ageing, and renewal, coupled with an inner quest to find new solutions and visual expressions. Architectural elements observed during her regular inner-city walks also inform the work as does a love of patterns and the Australian tradition of ‘making do’, which has fascinated her since childhood.
