Terri Brooks
“When you do something you love, you forget about reality for a while, which is healthy. I’m simply happier when I’m painting, even if it’s just for an hour a day. Looking at works in progress makes me think about what to do next. It makes everything in life feel a little better.”
Contemporary Australian abstract artist Terri Brooks is renowned for her richly complex works built on a foundation of simplicity. Using a restrained palette and a focus on horizontal and vertical brushstrokes, her paintings explore the tensions and harmonies of duality, drawing deep connections with the landscape and the structures that shape our world. From an early age, Brooks was drawn to visual experiences.
Brooks began exhibiting professionally while still an undergraduate and soon gained representation at Melbourne Contemporary Art Gallery. Her academic journey continued with postgraduate studies, eventually culminating in a PhD. While she taught extensively at TAFE, her own art practice never waned. Living near nature and the river, she draws inspiration from the natural world and its many mysteries. She describes abstraction as a “pooling of ideas” and finds beauty in the essential laws of nature, metaphysics, and the unseen energy of the universe. Her minimalist approach is informed by architecture and the human form—both grounded in the vertical and horizontal. The grid forms the structural base of her paintings, echoing the built environment and the organic order of the landscape. These movements are fundamental, and she deliberately avoids diagonal strokes, as they risk becoming representational rather than purely abstract.
