Past Exhibitions

Phil Brooks

Containers and Connectors

25 Jul - 18 Aug 2020

Exhibition Works

Buffer I
Buffer I (2020)
Buffer II
Buffer II (2020)
Buffer III
Buffer III (2020)
Whisper
Whisper (2020)
Container I
Container I (2020)
Container II
Container II (2020)
Container III
Container III (2020)
Container IV
Container IV (2020)
Moat
Moat (2020)
Mound
Mound (2020)
Crest
Crest (2020)
Accord I
Accord I (2020)
Accord II
Accord II (2020)
Accord III
Accord III (2020)
Pact I
Pact I (2020)
Pact II
Pact II (2020)
Inclusion I
Inclusion I (2020)
Inclusion II
Inclusion II (2020)
Inclusion III
Inclusion III (2020)
Embrace
Embrace (2020)

groupings

 
Containers and Connectors - Group A
 
Containers and Connectors - Group B
 
Containers and Connectors - Group C
 
Containers and Connectors - Group D
 
Containers and Connectors - Group E
 
Containers and Connectors - Group F
 
Containers and Connectors - Group G
 

exhibition text

The title of Phil Brooks’ new exhibition, Containers and Connectorssuggests that a sense of functionality lies at the core of these works. What the artist is exploring however, is not practical notions of vessels as holders for fruit or flowers. Brooks looks at how these vessels operate as discrete containers of space and how this can be subverted by playing with surface and form.

When considering a bowl, cup or vase, it is impossible to avoid consideration of what it does, or doesn’t, hold. Intrinsic to these forms is the containment of space and the commensurate potential for filling this space. The works in the Buffer and Container series turn this axiom inside out however. The inner surfaces of the vessels curve up into themselves, disrupting their expected physical and spatial dimensions. Similar to the way a Klein bottle’s interior is simultaneously its exterior, the interior of these works has erupted into its own space to become at once container and contained.

Brooks sees this full suite of works proceeding from an inward to an outward focus. The Accord and Pact, pieces reach out to connect with one another, breaching their exterior walls and extending space rather than filling it. The meeting points between burnished glazes and textured clay are identifiable boundary markers between in and out until Brook disrupts these as well. Patterns snake across edges and in Embrace the distinction between exterior and interior surface decoration dissolves altogether.

Exhibition Views