Anthony Brooks

Still can't make it outside to paint (for obvious reasons), so I'm reminiscing on the past year's works. This was one that I painted in late September in an old abandoned house in the Spanish countryside, titled "UnInhabited". The subject was a guy that I saw where I live, in Belgrade, Serbia. He was sitting on the sidewalk, just in front of the one tram stop, in this posh old leather recliner. Just watching people as they walked by, and occasionally giving them looks as if THEY were walking through his living room. For most people, he just looked through them.. I really loved the image and wanted to paint him somewhere, and when I found the wall in this house, I figured it was perfect. Now he, like the rest of us, is home practicing social distancing. ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ #painting #streetart #mural #publicart⁠ #graffiti #Spain #photography #portrait #Andalusia ⁠ #recliner #homeless #acrylic #memories⁠ #urbanart #jj _urbanart #streetartphotography #juxtapoz⁠ #chicagoartists #streetartlovers⁠ #streetarthunter #wallart #streetartandgraffiti⁠ #mentalhealth #abandoned #urbanculture #artistic _nation #travel #adventure #contemporary #contemporaryart

For the second painting of the series, here are some photos. I didn’t have a chance to upload everything to the site. I was working on writing project proposals all day, but will get to it tomorrow 😉 @artistinresidencebelgrade @gradska_galerija @kcgrad @goetheinstitut_belgrad #contemporaryart #reclaimedwood #reclaimedwoodart #woodgrain #woodworking #belgrade #serbia #urbansketch #usk #mural #artexhibition #niko #artistresidency #artresidency #garbageart #recycleart #foundobjectart #foundobject #installationart #installationartist

Before I get too far behind in my posts, here are a couple of photos by @kelley_satoski from the mural that I finished ~5 days ago in Logansport, Indiana. To date, my largest and most challenging (surface-wise) wall, but one that I really love the outcome of. The subject matter draws from a few key words that the local arts committee in Logansport provided, mainly "hobo, history, and trains". Upon researching the area in relation to those terms, I spent hours reading about and watching videos about the hobo culture in America. In my opinion, it's one of the most "American" lifestyles possible. Going to a new place in search of opportunity, while embracing the openness of the road and a yearning for adventure. Rather than painting a grizzled old hobo, I stumbled upon a photo in the National Archives of these two boys jumping into a railcar in the early 1900's and felt that it was a perfect starting point for a painting. For me, it represented that aforementioned sense of adventure that we all possess as children, but some lose as time passes. To others, it was that of a person offering another a helping hand. For others yet, it was a nostalgic image of their childhood, their parents' or grandparents'. The building that the painting is located on is called Transco, and has been in the area and working on trains for over 100 years, and I wanted to reference this in a subtle way that would accentuate the location, building, and their past rather than overtaking or covering up the years of wear and tear. The generations past. This project was organized by Tetia Lee of @tippecanoearts as well as the local arts committee of Logansport, and supported by Chris Phillips, the plant manager at Transco, who was really supportive throughout the process. Big thanks to them and everyone else involved. Second photo has me by the painting for a size reference. #streetart #mural #hobo #trains #graffiti #publicart

It’s difficult to choose which pictures of this I want to post. I like some from the morning, some from the afternoon, and some in between. Similar angles, different lighting. And some angles that I didn’t get, but wish I had. The painting itself and the subject is something that I put a lot of myself into and had a lot of fun researching. I love old historical photos and given the opportunity, like nothing more than to dive into the history/story of a place that I’m otherwise largely unfamiliar with and to try to connect a location/wall with these stories in a way that can ideally reignite interest and awareness in those stories for years to come. I’ll make a full write-up in the coming days/week about the piece, my process, and thoughts, but for now, I think this is it. Big thanks to everyone from Corpus Christi who hosted me, made me feel welcome, and to the other amazing artists that I met while there @sm.sanz @keydetail @sonnysundancer . Also big shoutout to @darkmode.photo and @goddessnoble for hanging around us all despite the heat and getting a bunch of photos/video ❤️ @downtownccmuralfest @downtowncorpuschristione01

Went to another life-drawing session the other day and just got around to scanning in a few that I liked. I love working on toned paper (especially this rough craft/recycled paper with its texture) and how that works with the copics to pretty easily build up form. I haven’t been drawing much lately with everything else taking the front seat, so it’s been really relaxing getting to just sketch. And also to feel like the past year of various anatomy studies have actually been paying off as I feel waaaay more comfortable drawing figures and understanding the various forms without needing to think about it. Kind of feels like fluency with a language, in some ways? I think these 3 were all around 6-10 min poses. Maybe 12 for one of them. Can’t remember and I forgot to write it down.

Haven’t had much time to draw lately as I’ve been super busy with @thestreetartlist and working on getting some projects lined up for the year that can cover the year’s costs. But yesterday, for the first time in a year, I went to a life-drawing session again. Was super nice to just draw and relax and I think that I need to make it a weekly thing again. It’s just so difficult to draw when on my own time as right now, I need to line up paid projects and though the past decade has taught me that drawing for myself always leads to better work which leads to paying work, it’s still been really difficult to justify. Anyways, wanted to share a few :)

An old piece from @dev9t in 2019 that I still really like. It’s been a pretty hectic last year and I didn’t get to travel or paint much while getting settled in and trying to acclimate to living/working in Berlin/Germany. I went from having a fully set up studio in Belgrade to most art supplies being boxed up in storage while spending the first half of the year just searching for an apartment, and by the time I finally found one, I had missed applying for everything and didn’t really get to paint anything. Still tried to draw more and focus on splitting income with illustration, but that also takes time to get back into. That said, in case you haven’t seen my work lately, I’ve been reeeally focusing in on my (now 5 year old and ongoing project) @thestreetartlist . I have almost 500 active festivals and events listed, a monthly newsletter listing out current/upcoming open calls, and am working on a proper website for it all (to be finished later this year). So overall, not a lot of public work this past year and not much that I feel like I can show, but just wanted to update and say Happy New Year and here’s to a year of actually painting again :) #mural #muralfest #streetart #graffiti #beograd #srbija

Working on updates daily and spent (a lot) of time yesterday making a typeform that will allow people to submit events (as artists, organizers, and appreciators) to help keep things as up-to-date as possible. Currently have over 400 festivals listed with around 308 and counting that are currently active as I still have around 80 more to check before I start spending more time looking for festivals that I don’t already know of. And I’m working on gathering open call dates whenever possible as well as email contacts for everyone (266 email addresses so far). SO, if you want to see the list, you can request access via the link in my bio. If you’re content just seeing the posts and stories as I find them, I just ask that you submit the events/projects that you are aware of via the typeform (also linked in the bio). If you don’t have a Google account to log in with, DM me and send me your email address. I can add you manually. #streetartcall #opencall #muralopencall #graffiti #thelist #thestreetartlist #streetartfest #muralfest #publicartopencall #publicart #publicartist #callforentry #opencall #rfq #graffitifest #mural #murals #streetart

Since late 2019, I’ve been working on a list of the festivals and projects worldwide which offer opportunities for street art, murals, graffiti, etc. I’ve also strongly resisted making a singular IG profile in that time as I was always publicly sharing the Google Sheets doc with everyone and encouraged them to do the same. At some point, I realized that many people weren’t seeing the list, many who were weren’t actually contributing to it (the main thing that I ask in order to keep the 400+ events up-to-date), AND worst yet, some of the people and pages that I had been in contact with about collaborating with were either sharing and taking credit for the absolutely stupid amount of time that I’ve spent on this or even asking for donations. So, at the moment, I’ve made an IG page for the list and called it @thestreetartlist . The list is and will continue to be free/public (though everyone needs to request access in order to view it via the link in my bio; I generally approve this within a day or two). I’ll also be sharing open calls here along with any pertinent info and will be starting a newsletter soon to let people know what opportunities are coming up, what festivals are taking place that month, and perhaps more as time goes on. If you’re curious about the past and how the list has progressed, you can see that in my highlights.

Nearly there. Today’s theme was pretty fitting for the overall feeling while drawing this (and for other things in life at the moment). Somehow, though, this was also pretty invigorating and kind of soothing/meditative. I quite enjoyed it :). #inktober2023rush #inktober2023 #inktober

Day 21 - Chains. Wanted to do a whole chain of creatures eating each other (perhaps in the reverse order of what you’d expect)… but as has been the case this past week, I haven’t had time. I should be back home tomorrow, so maaaybe the last week or so of October will afford me time to actually draw each day? Anyways, I wanted to do a piece for the food chain for today’s Inktober piece. #inktober2023 #inktober2023chains #inktober #chains

Day 18 - Saddle. I really love these drawings, where I just let my imagination go stupid and draw whatever. It’s something that I’ve fought for years, always working to draw things that are more realistic or that are more illustration or “work” focused. But I really really enjoy these and sometimes it’s just nice to remind myself why I like to draw in the first place and how everything doesn’t need to be so serious. #inktober2023 #inktober #saddle