Julie Brook MRSS

Brook is a British artist who for 30 years has roamed, lived and sculpted in a succession of uninhabited and remote landscapes in North West Scotland: Hoy, Orkney; Jura, West coast; Mingulay and North Harris Outer Hebrides.

Brook studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford University. She has explored the black volcanic desert of central Libya and in the Jebel Acacus mountains in South West Libya (2008/2009) and the semi-desert of NW Namibia (2011-2015) where the nature of light, shadow and structure are expressed in the sculptural forms Brook makes. 

More recently Brook has been working in stone quarries in Japan in relation to developing her tidal work, Firestacks in The Hebrides. The sculptural work is often transient in nature, inspired by and made from the materials of the landscape itself. Brook documents these transformations through film and photography which then become the expression of the work. She has recently been working in the marble Quarry La Cava di Querciola in Carrara, Italy. In May 2023, Brook opened a major exhibition at Abbot Hall, Kendal, UK with Lakeland Arts, alongside an exhibition at Komatsu Museum, Japan in June 2023.

What is it that will last? The Land and tidal art of Julie Brook

Lund  Humphries have made a new publication offering 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’.  

       https://www.lundhumphries.com/products/what-is-it-that-will-last

  Artist’s Statement                                                                                                                    When I’m asked about the language of my work, I see it as both a response to my environment, and the expression of the environment’s effect on me. It’s a process, a rhythm which I initiate, but as it gets more involved, it too begins to dictate terms.

And I must find a formal language that can express this.

Solitude is the heart of the matter.

It gives me a sense of inhabiting the landscape.