Admin Reveal:
A collection of works by Hannah Brookman from the Looky Years 2017-2022
On View at Looky Here January-February 2023
For more than a decade I have closely watched the development of Hannah Brookman’s creative capacities blossom into the form that now stands before you. I am biased of course , she is my fiancé and has been my best friend for even longer. But if there’s one thing you must know about Hannah’s creative life it’s that she really likes to draw and she does it… a lot. Hannah burns through a sketchbook like the hourglass pours through time , I kid you not. Every morning I consistently catch her drawing a comic of the day before , a quick still life in the kitchen as she pens a diary entry and to do list before she gets on to her day. And what you may ask does she do during these days? Well, when she isn’t the persistent custodian to the creation of her very own art scene via her storefront moniker Looky Here, reviving out of print William Morris essays in her own small edition risograph press, running workshops on everything from utopian artist colonies of the east coast to fairy house construction, tending to her own serial comic for the Montague Reporter, or producing filming and editing her own children’s tv show for Montague public access. She is painting , sculpting , crafting tributes to the scenes around her… What stands before you are not mere painting but windows into the actual life she’s living, and I would know because I was there man! Looky here! Look around and you’ll notice paintings of homes we’ve lived in the past six years from Leverett , Putney , Turners Falls and now, finally, Marlboro VT. Paintings of me on my phone when I truly should’ve known better, surrounded by a motley crew of stuffed animals, our cats Figaro and Snoopy. Hannah breathes life into these objects so much so that even her work on the scrollsaw resembles her work with the brush. But I mean, for Hannah it’s all just paper to her anyway! This form of art has more to do with an artist being a mirror of sorts, but with all the humility and wisdom to reflect the world (both natural and man made) as it truly is… an impressionistic cartoon, a timeless dream. But look around you, even Looky Here is part of these paintings in a way. Much like Claus Oldenburg’s store was part of his painting, these pursuits don’t begin or end in one medium. Hannah has made art a form of life and her painting just shows one axis of this, hidden in an alcove of commerce, this beauty can eclipse whatever panoptic gaze primes us to become passive observers in a society of spectacle. Hannah shows us the way toward a life of creativity and beauty for its own sake , and I for one know we’re all a little better it. - Omeed Goodarzi
Installation and Documentation Photographs by Rivkah Gevinson
Opening Reception Photographs by Katie Lehr
