U.K.-based artist Khaleb Brooks creates work addressing their personal narratives relating to queerness, Blackness, and collective memory.
Read MoreOriginally from Chicago, Brooks received their BA (International Studies/Women and Gender Studies) from Arcadia in London in 2013. In 2015, they received their MSc (Violence, Conflict and Development) from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Brooks' interdisciplinary practice interrogates Blackness, as well as queer narratives, transness, and collective memory. Using media including painting, printmaking, sound, and video, Brooks encourages a reflection upon the history of violence towards black people across the globe. Brooks has often approached the black figure through a surrealist and folk lens, while also navigating contemporary issues.
In their large-scale painting Tryna Make a Way out of no way (2020), Brooks depicts a mermaid lounging on a bed whilst holding a horn. This horn references one owned by African American soldier Prince Simbo, who fought with the Continental Army during the 18th-century American Revolution. The work considers ideas of sexuality, sensuality, emancipation, and liberation.
Black Boys Can Swim (2021) is a video performance that addresses the stereotype that black people cannot swim. Shot in Lamu in Kenya, the video explores the community's relationship with water. Men are seen working on traditional sailboats, with children playing in the ocean, as well as Brooks' own characters – combining myth-making with lived experience.
Brooks often draws from personal experience. For their solo exhibition, Can I Get A Witness (2022) at Gazelli Art House in London, the artist presented works reflecting on their childhood, having grown up in a black, female-led home. Chronicling Brooks' life prior to their gender-affirming surgery, these intimate works juxtapose personal imagery with images related to the policing of black women's bodies. Can I Get A Witness explores narratives around the political, queer, familial, and spiritual.
Brooks has held residencies at major institutions including the Liverpool International Slavery Museum and Tate Modern. At the Tate, Brooks conducted research and held workshops on the transatlantic slave trade, in response to the museum's collection.
Khaleb Brooks has held solo exhibitions at Gazelli Art House, London (2022); WE DEY, Vienna (2018); and the Paper Box, Brooklyn (2014).
Brooks' work has been included in group exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2022); Schwules Museum, Berlin (2019); and the Venice Biennale (2019).
Khaleb Brooks' website can be found here, and their Instagram can be found here.
Arianna Mercado | Ocula | 2022
