Meet Brianna Brooks, An Artist Who Found Beauty in Solitude
Teen Vogue is highlighting the work of visual artists through intimate profiles about their experiences, career, and muses with our new column, Art School. Every month Artsy Window founder, Kiara Ventura, leads the discussion by centering artists of color and telling their stories through an informed gaze.
With the heaviness that’s in the air because of novel coronavirus, I’ve been thinking about ways to be nice to myself, take care, and rest. I find myself wondering…how can we cope with isolation and sit in our feelings in a mindful way? Soon enough, while scrolling through Instagram, I came across playful drawings by Brianna Brooks of black teens sitting, resting, and daydreaming in their rooms and I couldn’t help but relate.
Providence, Rhode Island native, Brianna “Bri” Rose Brooks is an African-American artist who draws, paints, does silkscreen printing, and mixed-media practices. With vulnerability, self-care, and love in mind, Brianna is interested in telling the story of black adolescence. Brianna is known for their figurative and sometimes text-filled works on paper of black teens expressing their emotions from irritation to falling in love.
Brianna recently turned 23 and is finishing their first year at Yale School of Art in the painting department. Recently, they had to move out of their studio as the university shut its doors due to the virus. Brianna is currently quarantining inside their apartment, practicing isolation, and social distancing. But isolation is nothing new to them.
“I’ve always been an introspective person. I was alone a lot,” Brianna says.
Throughout high school, they spent a lot of time alone because of social anxiety. They didn’t have many close friends —their best friend was their sketchbook. As Brianna was failing in school, they were excelling at an after school program called, New Urban Arts, a free communal art studio. “I didn’t do good in school. I really struggled to do anything but art,” Brianna remembers.
The place where Brianna was free to express their feelings was through drawing. “The fact that I was isolated led me to draw. Because I drew every single day, I got better as an artist. That cause and effect situation of me being alone and then having to produce something out of that is definitely a vital and [a] fundamental part of my experience as an artist. I don’t think if I had a lot of people around and a lot of stuff to do that I would have turned to art as a consistent practice.”
When applying to college, all of their applications got rejected since their grades were so low. But there was a glimpse of light. In June 2015, Brianna saw that the School of the Art Institute of Chicago was still taking applications, Brianna got accepted in July and packed their bags to move to Chicago in August. With this new space, they continued in creating abstract stories of adolescence through their work—even now during their first year towards a Master's degree in Fine Arts at Yale University.
In the most graceful and vulnerable way, Brianna’s work shines light on the story of adolescence with vivid colors and loose brush and color pencil strokes. There’s lots of squiggly lines, zig-zags, and a sense of messiness. “My mom was an early child care teacher. I think a lot about learning motifs and how everything we know about the world is learned through experiences, media, art, and propaganda. This brought me to a place of understanding how much children, early learning, and just learning, in general, was part of what I was trying to say.”
As a response to these negative learned behaviors, Brianna paints and draws black adolescent figures in moments of rest, intense emotions, and contemplation. We can see them at home smoking blunts, scrolling through their phones, braiding each other’s hair, staring at a lamp while sitting in bed, and looking out the window.
Brianna’s work is reminiscent of that of black artists also thinking about black quotidian life such as Clementine Hunter, Jacob Lawrence, Faith Ringgold, Henry Taylor, and that of young contemporary artists such as Janiva Ellis, Cheyenne Julien, and Jordan Casteel with a sense of whimsical playfulness like the work of Alake Shilling.
Brianna utilizes the mundane and everyday symbols as a point of departure to speak about mental health. “I’m trying to understand what emotion really is. Trying to work with love in my work. Trying to work with intimacy. To a certain point, art becomes a big ass therapy session.” By acknowledging emotions with themselves via drawing they hope to guide others to confront their learned and sometimes toxic behaviors, perspectives, and emotions. “There is often this narrative for black femme people where people think ‘you are independent and you don’t need any help.’ That then becomes this compliment, but is also this disguised way of saying ‘we are not going to help you.’ I’m thinking about it from my perspective as a black femme person who is often not given the opportunity to be vulnerable.”
Brianna’s drawings and paintings are a loud message saying it’s OK to be alone. It’s OK to express emotions, sit in silence, and ask for help if you need to. It is moments like these that can lead you to a newfound practice and perhaps a place of healing. They believe your home base is way more than an environment, it’s a place where you can let go and practice self-care, even through mundane activities. During these social distancing times, Brianna has been sketching, walking their dog, and taking care of their hair. “I’ve been crying too! I’ve been crying plenty and I think everybody should cry as much as they need to during this time.”
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
