What is it that will last?
This publication offers a rich and expansive visual record of Julie Brook’s artistic practice, and proposes a unique collaboration between Brook and distinct voices from the nature writing and craftsmanship traditions.
Situating Brook’s practice in the context of critical reflections by Robert Macfarlane, Alexandra Harris and Raku Jikinyū, the publication presents a striking visual narrative of Brook's landscape and tidal sculptural work, and a sense of its timeless yet contemporary resonance. Documenting in depth a number of recent works made in the Hebrides, Japan and Namibia, their shared attention to the elements and their key pre-occupations of the fleeting, mobile forces of light, time, and gravity demonstrate Brook’s coherent vision within vastly contrasting environments. Throughout her oeuvre, the balance between what Brook makes in relation to the environment and materials themselves is paramount.
Including film stills, photography and drawing, which are all integral languages for conceptualising and communicating the work, plus insightful extracts from Brook’s notebooks, this beautiful publication succeeds in providing the reader with a unique understanding of the artist’s ‘monuments to the moment’.
Julie Brook studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford, and has been living and working in remote landscapes since 1989. Recent exhibitions include Made, Unmade (National Gallery of Namibia; The Wapping Project, London; Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh). Brook has featured on BBC4’s Forest, Field and Sky: Art in Nature, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Scotland. Dr Simon Groom has worked at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge and Tate Liverpool, and is currently Director of Modern and Contemporary Art, National Galleries of Scotland. Alexandra Harris is Professorial Fellow in English at the University of Birmingham. Her recent publications include Weatherland: Writers and Artists under English Skies (2015), Time and Place (2019). Kichizaemon XV · Raku Jikinyū has devoted his career to exploring the possibilities of the traditional teabowl form in a constant search for new modes of expression. Robert Macfarlane is a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. His award-winning Underland, Landmarks, The Old Ways and Mountains of the Mind has been widely adapted for film, television, radio, stage and music.