JANE BROOKS with MARCUS BOWCOTT and MANDY BOURSICOT, Oct 29 - Nov 10, 2005, Bugera Matheson Gallery, Edmonton

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"Journey"

Jane Brooks, "Journey," 2005, oil on panel, 44" x 46".

JANE BROOKS with MARCUS BOWCOTT and MANDY BOURSICOT

Bugera Matheson Gallery, Edmonton

Oct 29 - Nov 10, 2005

By Gilbert A. Bouchard

Even in her early, Rothko-influenced abstract phases, Jane Brookes’ painterly gaze was turning towards the heavens. “I’ve been painting skies since about 1998, and while it started very minimal, very abstract, a study of art history and Turner really led me to put some significance into what I was painting,” says the 51-year-old artist. Seeing her particular process as a deconstruction of the traditional landscape, the BC-educated and based artist says her heavily layered, oil-on-board paintings are visually distilled, consciously eliminating all that is not essential to the largely imagined skyscapes. Of late, Brookes says she’s been supplementing these aerial “metaphysical destinations” with depictions of frozen waterfalls, a subject matter inspired in part by winter drives to and from Whistler. “These images are becoming more abstract and involve more flowing paint, which I let actually fall on the canvas.”

Represented by: Buschlen Mowatt Gallery, Vancouver; Bugera Matheson Gallery, Edmonton; Wallace Galleries, Calgary.