Brian Martin Brooks

Constructed Colour.

Perceptual Light.

Constructs images by tuning colour and light across parallel modes of abstraction and image.

Brian Martin Brooks constructs images by tuning colour and light. Working across painting, works on paper and structured compositions, his practice develops a unified system that produces distinct but related image forms.

Rather than following a linear progression, the work operates across parallel modes: abstract structures, semi-abstract compositions and fully resolved images. Each emerges from the same underlying process, calibrating relationships of colour, density and interval to generate light as a perceptual effect.

These are not stages, but simultaneous expressions of the same system.

In some works, this remains exposed as structure, where colour operates as a measured field. In others, these same conditions begin to suggest space, atmosphere and movement. Elsewhere, they resolve into recognisable imagery, often carrying the qualities of landscape or memory while retaining their constructed origin.

Across all modes, the work remains anchored in the same question: how colour can be organised to produce light, and how light, once constructed, can become image.

Brian Martin Brooks (b. 1950, Wembley) is a British-born contemporary artist living and working in South East England. He studied at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and at Wimbledon School of Art, London, and his practice spans painting, drawing, photography, music and installation. At its centre lies a lifelong exploration of colour and light, not as description, but as living substance.

Brooks’s life has been as vivid as his palette: he performed in the early punk and folk music movement, assisted Sir George Martin in Brazil, drove a New York cab, and spent time using his screen printing knowledge at Andy Warhol’s Factory, was friends with Rupert Smith. Yet fame has never been his pursuit; instead, he has cultivated depth, discipline and luminosity.

“I don’t chase light, I build it. My role is to be architect, builder and visionary.”

“20 Glasses” - 63.5cm x 102cm (approx.) - Oil on Canvas

“Refraction I” - 81 cm x 130.5 cm (approx.) - Acrylic on Linen

Leonardslee I‍ - 91.5cm x 122 cm - Oil on Linen

“Pool Reflection IV” - details forthcoming

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  • “His integral understanding of colour and perspective equals his command for pattern and repetition with an elegant and refined technique”

    Basia Deptuch, Curator and Art Manager

  • “Brooks continues to push creative boundaries by merging traditional painting methods with modern tool and ideas, creating work that often defies easy categorisation”

    Curator (Hayhill Gallery)

  • “Colour is never passive. My job is to direct the dance”

    Brian Martin Brooks

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