TAYLOR DE CORDOBA
K I M B E R LY B R O O K S Mom’s Friends
TAYLOR DE CORDOBA
K I M B E R LY B R O O K S Mom’s Friends
KIMBERLY BROOKS Mom’s Friends Printed in California All Images Š Kimberly Brooks First Edition, July 13, 2013 Los Angeles, California All rights reserved. All images contained in this book are the sole property of Kimberly Brooks. No part of this publication may be duplicated or transmitted in any form without prior written consent from Taylor de Cordoba. Displaying such material without prior permission is a violation of the international copyright laws. Design: Lightray Productions Inc. Kimberly Brooks kimberlybrooks.com Represented by Taylor De Cordoba taylordecordoba.com
TAYLOR DE CORDOBA
K I M B E R LY B R O O K S Mom’s Friends
ESSAY Leah Lehmbeck
aving entered a post feminist age where the uestion of can we have it all , Kimberly Brooks series of paintings, om s Friends, based upon her mother and her mom s friends in ill alley in the late 1 0s, the sub ect is considered afresh. Brooks depicts women who are, according to her, endlessly fascinating and mysterious...particularly because they are in a state of transition. iewed through the theme of womanhood through the imagery of female liberation some thirty years ago, Brooks reminds us not only of the uestion s continual relevance, and also investigates the comple relationship between reality, memory and representation. As universal as this topic is the woman uestion , continually up for discussion since the inception of modern feminism in the late 1 0s Brooks was specifically inspired by her role as the mother of a young daughter. Now that I am a mother with a daughter of my own, I see the way she studies me and my friends, how she imitates the way I walk and talk or wants to traipse in my heels, the artist e plains. Recalling how she used to do the same, Brooks turned to her own mother for inspiration, deciding to use photographs from the 1 0s of her mother and her mom s friends actual, and recreated in the studio with friends in vintage clothing as the basis for this series. By presenting women who migrated to California from the idwest and East Coast who conse uently melted their inhibitions, heated up their styles and...shed previous notions of themselves, Brooks s paintings fi us at a significant time and place when women raised in the 1 0s sought, for the first time, to forge their identities apart from their husbands and families. Interestingly, what is not shown, but lurks, is the pain and dysfunction wrought by the inevitable divorce and the shattering of the nuclear family that ensued after this newfound freedom was acheived. And it is this feature these mother s newfound autonomy that Brooks presents, and inevitably positions against her own identity as a
mother and against the current state of feminism. The women in these paintings, with confident bodies and smiles thrust up to the picture plane, appear to bask in their newfound freedom. et it is the pictures relationship, once again, to photography that complicates these ostensibly straightforward representations. Although the ga es of the female figures in Brooks s paintings are direct, they are not entirely convincing in their self assurance. hether this insecurity is a convention of the pose or an uneasy reflection of a newly created identity is up for us to decide. And their look as if they know they are being watched returns us to Brooks earlier e plorations of women as ob ect in her previous series, The hole tory about women as sub ect and ob ect of the ga e . Even in their freest conte t, women cannot avoid but being both sub ect and ob ect at once. The e plicit connection between the paintings and decades old photographs adds another provocative dimension to this conversation between past and present. It is as though we ve seen the pictures before. In Train to Reno , for e ample, skin tones are paler and more olive, and lipstick and blush are richer than they should be the slick surface of the oil paint carrying deep reds, browns, yellows, and even blacks and whites a shade deeper than their counterparts in reality.
ophia Loren of il on Panel 3 3 , 200
ill alley
The econd Polaroid Ever Taken il on Linen 20 20 , 200
Train to Reno il on Panel 3 3 , 200
30
Esalen il on Linen 0 , 200
For access to the entire catalogue, please email art@kimberlybrooks.com.
KIMBERLY BROOKS Mom’s Friends Printed in California All Images Š Kimberly Brooks First Edition, July 13, 2013 Los Angeles, California All rights reserved. All images contained in this book are the sole property of Kimberly Brooks. No part of this publication may be duplicated or transmitted in any form without prior written consent from Taylor de Cordoba. Displaying such material without prior permission is a violation of the international copyright laws. Design: Lightray Productions Inc. Kimberly Brooks kimberlybrooks.com Represented by Taylor De Cordoba taylordecordoba.com