Brooke Whelan

Growing up in a small country town, both nature and her surroundings provide inspiration for Brooke's work. Looking past the obvious, close observation and engagement of the subject is her process. Rather than focus on creating a personal narrative, her artworks evoke a nostalgic sense of time and place. Exploring how the man-made elements and the surroundings are affected through interaction with the natural world over time, Brooke likes to play with vantage points and perspective, shifting between an interesting foreground, to what is seen beyond.

Expressive brush strokes and saturated rich acrylic colours are used to depict the light filtering through the elements and subject, capturing the sun and representing the colour of the day and season. Her artworks are nostalgic, haunting and romantic simultaneously, with colour used to convey a mood or feeling. Construction lines, scratches and intuitive brush strokes explore the relationship of tight and loose elements in the same composition. These are used to enhance the aesthetic and add charm and patina to the image, creating a vintage film like appearance.

Encouraging the viewer to meander through the artwork, they are left to see what they want to see or feel and how they resonate with the subject. Her message is to inspire those who see her work to look more carefully at the world around them, to explore the feeling you have when fully present in your surroundings, and to discover beauty in unusual places.