National Year of Reading – Interview with Julie Brook
Our next interview for the National Year of Reading is with British artist Julie Brook...
What was the first non-fiction/arts book you remember reading, and what was its impact on you?
An early Thames & Hudson edition of Seurat’s work. I was shown Seurat’s drawings by my exceptional art teacher at school. The richness and sensuality of his drawings that express acute perception and observation with their spare essential forms was a profound revelation for me. They opened up an understanding of what it means to observe well. That drawing is about the hand, eye, heart and good rhythm. A good drawing breathes with life. It was a turning point in my early teenage years when art became central to my life.
What’s the latest art/design/other book you’ve read?
Arundhati Roy’s ‘When Mother Mary Comes to Me’. Reading ‘God of Small Things’ whilst I was making a large scale sculptural work Ascending in a stone quarry in Japan was deeply inspiring. I had never experienced literature like this before. She has such an original voice and is phenomenal in her gift for story telling. Her childhood was clearly extremely challenging and she tells it with fierce courage. She celebrates her brilliant and difficult mother by giving us a full picture of her character and how much she achieved against great odds. She is also able to weave the much bigger political contexts into the story through the specific characters she creates. Her 'Ministry of Utmost Happiness' explores this with an amazing array of people.
What is your favourite Lund Humphries book, and why?
I like a lot of the Lund Humphries books but I will single out Caroline Walker’s book 'Mothering'. The way Caroline is able to capture the every day tasks of being a mother, grandmother, carer so you want to look and look at her paintings is a wonderful experience. She celebrates so many scenarios that would normally be overlooked. She understands how to express phenomenal detail while keeping the whole composition strong so we are held spellbound. She creates a great synergy between the painterliness of the paintings and the presence of the subject and composition. I love the way Lund Humphries have also included her beautiful drawings.
What is currently on your to-read list, and why does it appeal to you?
'Totem' by Jo Baring. From reading the beginning I am excited to see how Jo places sculpture in the world historically and its place in contemporary times where we face such profound challenges both politically and with climate change being the most urgent and pressing concern. I like her desire to make sculptural work more accessible to a wide audience and what a vital part of our existence it has played for human beings from when we first began.
If you were starting a star-studded art or architecture book club, who, from any era, would you like to invite?
George Eliot for creating one of the greatest characters in literature, Dorothea. Arundhati Roy for her humour and incredible way of seeing the world. Toni Morrisson for her groundbreaking writing and making the imagination integral to the real. Colm Toibin, his 'Nora Webster' is a masterpiece. Mary Oliver, her poems always make me look better , listen more, slow down and take care to be attentive. Her poems are uplifting and affirmative. Agnes Denes for her understanding of the creative voice and how to make art that can speak about our current political contradictions. Katie Paterson for her far seeing eye. Her 'Future Library' is one of the greatest contemporary works of art. Alexandra Harris for her encyclopaedic knowledge of literature and how astutely she writes about art in a way that offers depth of understanding as well as remaining accessible for readers, and for her wonderful sense of humour. Robert Macfarlane for his warmth and agility to create living connections between pressing climatic and environmental concerns with the inspiration of poetry and literature to move us into action.
Above photos: Ruby Pluhar.
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. 'What is it that will last? Land and tidal art of Julie Brook' was the first substantial publication to explore her work and was published by Lund Humphries in April 2023.
