Jason Brooks

BIO

Jason Brooks (b. 1972) is an Austin Texas-based artist who has been working professionally as an accomplished tattoo artist since 1992. Throughout his career, Brooks has been recognized internationally for his unique style of contemporary tattooing. In 2011, he became one of the only living tattoo artists to have a solo museum exhibition, held at the Dallas Contemporary. Since 2011, he has shifted his focus to painting and has amassed a prolific and idiosyncratic body of work. Brooks' paintings bring elements of the natural world in sync with capacities of the human mind. These may be through the use of perceptual anomalies, figurative mannerisms, or misplaced archetypes. Like a filmic still from the imagination, the work often presents a sense of isolation, unrest, or a paradoxical situation with no legible resolution. Many of the works are a found image through the excavation of paint.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My paintings are a collage of my life experiences. Not necessarily filmic stills, but a dissection of internal emotions. Extracted from complex emotions and experiences; simple, non-grandiose images appear. Most of my paintings do not have a set narrative, leaving it up to the viewer’s imagination to navigate their own path through the work. As an artist, I’m always looking for an opportunity to create. A juxtaposition of imagination, recent experiences, and distant memories re-emerge and reveal themselves in a new way. During this excavation process, fields of color and a painterly surface make their entry, interlocking image and paint. Over the past several years, one of my favorite subjects to paint is the gorilla. As in the painting “Desert Dweller” 2020 they are depicted more as an emblem rather than naturalistic. I like to put them into exaggerated scenarios, sometimes human scenarios. They dominate the picture plane with their monolithic body mass, once again, against fields of color and an active surface.

Interview with Jason Brooks

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you became interestedin becoming an artist? Who or what were some of your most important early influences?

I definitely grew up with art being an important element in my life and surroundings. My dad was an illustrator and painter, as well as my step-mother, and they always encouraged my brother and I to follow that path. A lot of my earliest memories are being in my dad’s studio sitting at his drawing board and just making drawings all day. As a teenager in the 80’s, I was very involved with skateboarding and the punk rock scene. Probably my first major influence in art that really impacted me was Jim Phillips. He did all of the illustration for Santa Cruz Skateboards and Independent in the 70’s and 80’s. If you ever looked through a Thrasher Magazine during that time period, you were bombarded with his work. I ended up being friends with him later in life when I lived in Santa Cruz in 2009 and 2010. After high school, I had planned to go to art school,but pursued tattooing instead, which I have been doing now for 30 years.

Where are you currently based and what initially attracted you to working in this place? Are there any aspects of this specific location or community that have inspired aspects of your work?

Austin, Texas. I moved here from Miami, Florida in 1997. Austin then was a very unique city. A melting pot of hippies, artists, punks, cowboys and intellectuals. A very liberal oasis in the middle of Texas, as it still is.

Can you describe your studio space? What are some of the most crucial aspects of a studio that make it functional? Do any of these specific aspects directly affect your work?

My studio usually has a few large piles of books lying around. I’ve always loved looking through books. Art books, wildlife books, history books, anything interesting to get the brain thinking in different directions.

What is a typical day like? If you don't have a typical day, what is an ideal day?

I'm a very routine oriented person, it's the only way I can get anything done. After getting morning house duties that need to be done, I’m usually in the studio by 8 am and spend an hour or so just reading or looking at books, maybe a little drawing and looking at work that I have in progress. Late mornings I will walk my dog, work out and get focused on what I'm going to be working on that day. Around noon I head back into my studio to start working. I'll wrap up usually around 7 and hang out with my wife for the rest of the evening. That's a typical guideline for my days in the studio, but each one is always a little different.

What gets you in a creative mindset?

The daily would be just having some time in the morning to think and have clarity about what I'm doing. I travel quite a bit and for me that's the absolute best way for me to get in a creative mindset. Seeing new things, meeting new people and new experiences all shows up in one way or another in the work. For me, that's what it's all about and over time your work becomes your story in a way.

Can you walk us through your overall process? How long has this approach been a part of your practice?

I usually have a very small 10 second thumbnail sketch that I use as a starting point for a painting. It's usually the most basic sketch of forms and suggestive composition. After the initial starting point is loosely brushed on, I start breaking from it.

Over time I start finding out what the painting will be, an excavation. Sometimes it's not until the final stage of the painting that everything comes together and reveals itself. Rarely does a painting stay on course with the initial thumbnail drawing. The gorilla paintings are my saviors.

For paintings that were what I thought might be finished, then later I realize they are not keepers or ones that I'm just not finding anything in the work, the gorilla appears. They are just fun to paint and I can put them in odd situations. Whatever the work is, I think a sense of humor is very important. It's hard for me to take any work seriously if it comes across as too serious.

Can you talk about some of the ongoing interests, imagery, and concepts that have informed your process and body of work over time? How do you anticipate your work progressing in the future?

This past year I’ve slowly removed any human presence or human condition from my work. I’ve been reading Tao Te Ching a lot, and it has deeply changed my work. My paintings have microscoped what I feel are worlds within a world. Natural forms and situations that could be possible, some maybe not, but either way I would like the forms to have a life of their own and take the place of any human presence that was previously dominant in a lot of my work. I'm sure I will bring back figuration in my work at some point, but I'm really
enjoying what I’m doing right now.

Do you pursue any collaborations, projects, or careers in addition to your studio practice? If so, can you tell us more about those projects, and are there connections between your studio practice and these endeavors?

I've been tattooing large scale and bodysuits for 30 years. I started tattooing when I was 19, so I went down that road instead of going to art school. Studying Japanese woodblock prints and Asian art for many years i feel has been a good thing for my painting. It's been challenging to balance the two, but I've narrowed down tattooing to only 2 days a week now.

As a result of the pandemic, many artists have experienced limited access to their studios or loss of exhibitions, income, or other opportunities. Has your way of working (or not working) shifted significantly during this time? Are there unexpected insights or particular challenges you’ve experienced?

During the lockdown in 2020, I had one of the most productive periods of working. My studio is connected to my house, so I spent about 8-10 hours a day there uninterrupted from any of the usual daily grind, it was amazing! I'm a small business owner as well, so there were absolutely no interruptions with that side of things either. My wife and I travel a lot, it's a passion for us both, so the travel ban really affected us mentally. She found different outlets for herself, and I just kept my nose down and was very prolific in my work. For me, the last two years have been a time of major shifts and discovery in my painting, so it's been really exciting!

Can you share some of your recent influences? Are there specific works—from visual art, literature, film, or music—that are important to you?

My recent influences have been long time influences as well. Forrest Bess is always on my brain, Philip Guston is probably one of my all time favorites. Bob Thompson, Marsden Hartley, Susan Rothenberg, just to name a few. As I was talking about earlier, I've been reading Tao te Ching quite a bit this past year. It has really been calming and I think it has shown up in my work.

Who are some contemporary artists you’re excited about? What are the best exhibitions you’ve seen in recent memory and why do they stand out?

I love Stanley Whitney's work. His paintings are the most generous use of color as the space. Katherine Bradford has been a favorite for years. She's absolutely free in her work, which I think is the hardest thing to achieve in this whole thing. Brenda Goodman is another one. She makes work that is very “still” in a way, but absolutely exciting and has energy pouring from it. My friends Ben Degen and Hope Gangloff as well as my brother David Brooks always inspire me to be the best that I can possibly be, and have been great role models. I think the most recent exhibition that really excited me was Joshua Marsh at Mother Gallery in Beacon, NY this past summer. His paintings are like no one else’s, but his drawings are absolutely incredible! To be able to put an enormous experience into a very small scale like he does is genius and masterful. I've been thinking of his drawings a lot lately.

Do you have any tips or advice that someone has shared with you that you have found particularly helpful?

Keep working no matter what.

What are you working on in the studio right now?

Right now I'm focusing on smaller scale paintings. It's always challenging to make an impact with a small scale painting like you can with larger scale paintings. I'm really experimenting in a lot of new directions at the moment so breakthroughs seem to happen faster on a smaller scale.

What’s coming up next for you?

I'm in a few group shows this spring and hopefully making a lot of new work in the coming months.

Anything else you would like to share?

Thanks so much for the opportunity to do this, and thank you to everyone who takes a few minutes to read this!

To find out more about Jason Brooks, check him out on Instagram or on his website.