We were lucky to catch up with jeffrey equality brooks recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi jeffrey, thanks for joining us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

If I could go back in time I wish I would have started my career so much sooner! I would not have wasted my time or a single dollar on a college campus, ever. Private instruction or atelier instruction would have suited me better, instead, I spent 12 years at a university attempting to learn art-speak, of which I have no aptitude or patience for.

While my family recognized that I was artistically oriented, if not gifted from a young age, I struggled with school immensely. And I still have tremendous difficulty reading and typing things due to synesthesia, dyslexia, ADHD, anxiety, etc.

I come from a well-below middle class upbringing. As a kid I always had a business to help contribute to the family, paper routes, wagon concession stand at Cub scout baseball games, and later airbrushing t-shirts in high school. My family kindly guided me away from what I was good at to pursue a more “respectable midwestern career and education.” I di become the first person in my family to get a college degree which I was taught would give me a better life.

On top of reading difficulties, I also have had severe asthma since birth. In 2018 I got on an autoimmune medication which ended a very bad decade of illness that frankly I didn’t think I was going to pull out of. And with this new “lease on life,” as they say, I went all in on what I wanted to do for the first time in my life. So I’ve really only been painting for four years even though I’m nearly fifty.

So, yeah, long story short, I wish I would have started my creative career sooner.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Well, I have an MFA from UIC with a focus area of photo, film and electronic media. After a couple years as an animator I worked professionally for a decade and a half as a recording engineer and music composer for film and TV. Most recently I’ve been working in the mediums of painting and photography, and I enjoy combining them with elements of graphic arts, collage, and stenciling. Despite being dyslexic, which I mentioned, I have always had this bewildering habit of using chunks of text in my work. Oh, and I was raised in a cult and have come very, very close to death several times. Ya know, pretty standard stuff.

My goal is to produce compulsively “lookable” paintings that make you say “shit i’ve felt like that” and sometimes it might be an uncomfortable conversation. While I love pop art’s color and rendering styles I am more interested in the “new sincerity” moniker which rejects brand as identity and celebrity.

Those new to my paintings might be shocked to hear that they are mostly built up from spraying automotive paints with mega-detailed cut one-time use stencils. You’ll also see paint mixed with silica, 24k gold and copper leaf, broken glass, cut and layered strips of transparent vinyl, brushed enamel, stacks of resin, carved materials, and of course you’ll see my obvious love affair with hot rod paints with oodles of metal flakes and candies.

My integral first step is taking photos of real people in my studio. The photos are then used as source to build the paintings; however, there’s no print of the photo within the artwork itself. While I do have that MFA, the elaborate techniques I use in my paintings are my sole invention. It’s a unique style that I’ve built up with heart through the years.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Art gives life value and without it we’re drones.

I really think introspection is critical. We need to stop moving from distraction to distraction, sit quietly and allow ourselves to get bored. Because, if you will, that’s when the muse visits. And… I’m soooo terrible at sitting still. It’s hard, it’s work, but that’s when the magic happens.

What do you find most rewarding about being creative?

Connection! I hate to say it, but there’s nothing like the feeling of validation when someone buys a piece of my art. That something I created just because I felt it, speaks to a collector so strongly that they decided that they want it in their life. Even if we never meet, there’s a connection of idea between us.

-Be kind because you can

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jeffreyequalitybrooks.com
• Instagram: @jeffrey.equality.brooks

Image Credits
All photos by jeffrey equality brooks (both of the models and of the paintings)