TERRI BROOKS – FINDING BEAUTY IN DUALITY
Contemporary Australian abstract artist Terri Brooks is renowned for her richly complex works built on a foundation of simplicity. Using a restrained palette and a focus on horizontal and vertical brushstrokes, her paintings explore the tensions and harmonies of duality, drawing deep connections with the landscape and the structures that shape our world. From an early age, Brooks was drawn to visual experiences. She recalls a vivid childhood memory:
“It was dark, and I knew I was nearly home when I saw the
corner house, always with the door open and a light on, with a large painting
of a gum tree on its wall. I asked my mother about it years later, and she said
it was exceptionally well done. It was the first time I’d seen a large-scale
painting”.
Throughout her school years in 1960s Victoria, she was
exposed to Australian Impressionist paintings, Indigenous storytelling, and
early abstract art influences like Bridget Riley. These foundational
experiences ignited a lifelong fascination with abstraction and the expressive
potential of line, tone, and form.
Brooks began exhibiting professionally while still an
undergraduate and soon gained representation at Melbourne Contemporary Art
Gallery. Her academic journey continued with postgraduate studies, eventually
culminating in a PhD. While she taught extensively at TAFE, her own art
practice never waned. Living near nature and the river, she draws inspiration
from the natural world and its many mysteries. She describes abstraction as a
“pooling of ideas” and finds beauty in the essential laws of nature, metaphysics,
and the unseen energy of the universe. Her minimalist approach is informed by
architecture and the human form—both grounded in the vertical and horizontal.
The grid forms the structural base of her paintings, echoing the built
environment and the organic order of the landscape. These movements are
fundamental, and she deliberately avoids diagonal strokes, as they risk
becoming representational rather than purely abstract.
Brooks’ series Crisscross, Radiate, and Double Check reflect
her fascination with duality—light and dark, beginning and end, positive and
negative. Her palette is often stark, using black and white as expressive colours
rather than neutrals. Within these tones, she explores endless variations,
blue-black, grey-black, warm-white, oatmeal, buff, creating subtle, evocative
shifts in feeling and texture. Even when the palette softens, the concept of
balance remains central, evoking the yin and yang that underpin much of her
visual language.
In contrast, her paper works, developed over two decades,
embody a different energy. Rooted in resourcefulness and the philosophy of
“making do,” these pieces are made from recycled materials, influenced by her
grandmother’s Depression-era pragmatism. Though materially distinct from her
canvas work, they maintain an aesthetic connection, much like Cy Twombly’s
relationship between drawing and sculpture.
During the pandemic, Brooks’ practice evolved once again.
Working from home in Melbourne, her paintings shifted from gestural warmth to a
finer, more restrained gridwork—an introspective turn that she embraces as part
of her ongoing journey. For Brooks, creating art is a meditative act. Each line
is a path, not always straight, but always purposeful, like a walk guided by
instinct and intuition. Today, with no looming deadlines and a sense of
creative freedom following recent recognition, Brooks continues to stretch
canvases and follow where the lines take her—finding joy, presence, and meaning
in the process of making.
“When you do something
you love, you forget about reality for a while, which is healthy. I’m simply
happier when I’m painting, even if it’s just for an hour a day. Looking at
works in progress makes me think about what to do next. It makes everything in
life feel a little better.”
Terri
Brooks is represented by Linton & Kay Galleries.
Urbane Gazette, Volume 7, Issue 1, part 22. Perth, Australia, May, 2025.
