Born Philadelphia, PA
Lives and works in Philadelphia, PA
Education 1972 MFA, Tyler School of Fine Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
1970 BFA, Tyler School of Fine Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
1968-69 Tyler School of Art, Rome, Italy
1959-63 Certificate, Philadelphia Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia, PA
The artist names the Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky when talking about how he became an abstract painter. Kandinsky’s book “Concerning the Spiritual in Art,” (1912) has been a big influence. And indeed, looking at Brooker and looking at Kandinsky, one sees an allegiance in the artists’ spirits. Kandinsky’s works are ebullient; full of bold color, energetic line and musical rhythms. So too are Brooker’s. Kandinsky was mapping the inner life in his works and so is Brooker. Kandinsky believed both in composing (ordering) a painting and in improvising (working intuitively). Brooker too uses both strategies.
One thinks of music when one looks at Brooker’s paintings. His lines and dots are staff lines and musical notes, and the procession of shapes evokes a symphony. Brooker’s connection to music is familial and communitarian. He sings in the choir at First African Baptist Church of Philadelphia and he sings with the Royal Priesthood, a group that sings gospel music, sometimes with a jazz inflection. He was the seventh son in a musical household where everyone played instruments and sang. Whether consciously or not, the artist’s paintings have song-like structures with passages that are pure call and response, verse and chorus.
