Shana Nys Dambrot“Meet an Artist Monday” is an ongoing series of mini Q&As with some of L.A.’s most active and eclectic contemporary artists, introducing themselves to you in their own words. For our inaugural edition, we meet painter Kimberly Brooks, which is only fitting because this serial project itself was directly inspired and informed by the work Brooks did as the founder of the original HuffPost Arts blogs.
L.A. WEEKLY: When did you first know you were an artist?
KIMBERLY BROOKS: I knew I was an artist since I was little. I had a set of markers in kindergarten that I kept incredible care of, and every few years I would get more colors. When I was 13, my father took me to New York’s MoMA, and when I saw Malevich’s White on White I had so many questions and it filled me with determination. That same moment also led my late father, Leonard Shlain, to pen his first book, Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time and Light.
What is your short answer to people who ask what your work is about?
This changes depending upon the year you ask. I fall into subjects as if into a well. I used to focus on the figure. Now I tune into my imagination, painting interiors and landscapes that I either dreamed or remember.
Kimberly Brooks, Fawn, 2018, oil on linen; Credit: Courtesy of the artist and Mash Gallery
What would you be doing if you weren’t an artist?
I would start a publishing company so that I could collaborate with artists and writers. I love putting art and words together into a new kind of art.
Why do you live and work in L.A., and not elsewhere?
I grew up in San Francisco and Marin, where the light is primarily silver. I tried living in other places, New York (too much cement), and for a year in my 20s I lived in Paris and played piano in bars at night. It was terribly romantic, intoxicating to the point of oppressive. I was also broke. But in Los Angeles, which I discovered almost by accident due to an out-of-the-blue job opportunity, the light is gold. There was a singular moment, in a rented red Nissan Sentra on Sunset Boulevard, while the sunlight was blinking between the palm trees into my eyes, that I knew that it was here that I could be an artist in full.
When is/was your current/most recent/next show?
My current survey exhibition, “Fever Dreams” at Mt. San Antonio College, is my largest yet. It features 32 oil paintings and 20 works on paper. It’s about 21 miles east of DTLA and worth the trip. I also have a piece in the group exhibition “Nature Worship,” curated by Andi Campognone at the Mash Gallery in downtown LA.
“Fever Dreams,” Mt. San Antonio College. 1100 N. Grand Ave., Walnut; through Dec. 6.
“Nature Worship,” Mash Gallery, 1325 Palmetto St., downtown; through Nov. 10.
Kimberly Brooks, Portrait Hall, 2017, oil on linen; Credit: Courtesy of the artist and Zevitas Marcus
Website: www.kimberlybrooks.com
Twitter: @1KimberlyBrooks
Instagram: @kimberlybrooksartist
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