Born 1987, Exeter.
Lives and works in West Cornwall.
Flo Brooks is a painter of modern life. His practice can be considered as a revising of traditional genre painting: at the very centre of each painting is
a personal reflection on work, leisure and the in-between. Speaking of his approach, Brooks has said: “It feels fundamental to think critically about
the ways we connect with each other, and what this might look like in our own lives. I make sense of things through lived experience, through intimate
relationships and the communities I’m part of, whether that’s the rural community I grew up in, queer and trans communities, art networks or my
blood family”.
Working with acrylic on shaped wooden panels, the compositions of his paintings literally burst at the seams sprawling across the gallery walls. For
his recent touring exhibition, Angletwich, that opened at Brighton CCA, presented a suite of paintings set within a unique sculptural installation for the
first time. Drawing from his own experience growing up in the rural Southwest, the works centre on a series of rural archetypes; from a livestock fair
and the post office, to a lonely bus stop, generating a simultaneous sense of familiarity and isolation. Each work in the exhibition is part of a wider
whole; depicting characters, scenes and places which together develop a critical narrative of place and queer experience in Britain.
Frieze review - Queer History According to Flo Brooks, Elizabeth Fullerton
Featured show - The Shock of the Now Issue 37, Hector Campbell
Awkward Spaces - an essay by Paul Clinton, Grand Parade Press, Brighton CCA
Hunger Magazine - Flo Brooks’ paintings playfully pick apart our “mindlessness under capitalism”
Artforum - Critics Pick Flo Brooks at Cubitt Gallery
Elephant - Flo Brooks Gives Visibility to Trans Experience in Playful Paintings
It’s Nice That - Flo Brooks' paintings of liminality are those "almost everyone can relate with"
Solo/ Duo Exhibitions:
2023
Harmonycrumb, Spike Island
Inner Bark Out, (Public Commission) Clapham Public Realm Programme produced by Studio Voltaire in partnership with
This is Clapham BID
2022
Be tru to your rec, Project Native Informant, London
2021
Angletwich, Tramway, Glasgow
2020
Angletwich, Brighton CCA, Brighton
Project Native Informant at Art Basel Hong Kong
2018
Scrubbers, Project Native Informant, London
What Comes to Matter, Plymouth Art Weekender, Plymouth
2017
Is now a good time?, Cubitt Gallery, London
2015
Notes for Turtle Salon (with Charlotte Prodger, curated by Irene Revell), White Cubicle Toilet Gallery, London
Heaving the Lead, Cecil Sharp House, London
Group Exhibitions:
2022
Cubitt 30, Victoria Miro, London
The only thing more slippery than the elbow, Auction House, Redruth
2021
Bodies in Space, MIRROR, Plymouth
Seen, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, Cornwall
Beano: The Art of Breaking the Rules, Somerset House, London
2020
Found In Translation, Trans Vegas Festival (online)
CONDO London, Project Native Informant, London
2019
Kiss My Genders, Hayward Gallery, London
2018
Survey, Jerwood Space, London
Deep down body thirst (curated by Radclyffe Hall), Glasgow International, Glasgow
2016
Inland Festival, Redruth
Retrospective, Cecil Sharp House, London
Whose body where?, Open Source, Gillett Square, London
Awards:
Paul Hamlyn Award, 2021
Plymouth Platform Award, 2018
Collections:
Arts Council Collection, British Council, Government Art Collection, Soho House
For all enquiries etc. please contact Project Native Informant.
Otherwise you can reach me at flobrooks14@gmail.com