Brooklin Soumahoro on Sundays

BROOKLIN A. SOUMAHORO – ARTIST STATEMENT

I am drawn to dualities and the interplay of oppositional forces. By stripping my work down to its most essential elements—line and color—I create artworks where contradictory ideas can coexist: stillness/chaos, violence/peace, time/timelessness, abstraction/figuration…

In my paintings, Energy field, I use carefully planned structures as a basis for intuitive mark- making in which gestural lines simultaneously form an underlying grid. The improvisational execution of the paintings ensure that each work is unique, with unrepeatable patterns that shift according to each viewer’s perspective, including myself. Each painting poses a physical challenge, which I ultimately enjoy.

With the Lightning Field drawings, I connect the mysteries of nature with the tradition of abstract art. Each colored line in his drawings is measured upon lightning size and visibly hand colored to create a melodic composition, with geometric patterns that change upon the viewer’s perspective. By referring to lightning bolts – a still partially unknown phenomena that occurs 100 times per second and 8 million times per day and causes a visceral reaction in those who experience it – I challenge the underlying paradox of something so beautiful and yet so dangerous.

In an era in which we are clearing away outmoded systems and ways of being, I use abstraction to engage with our emerging future. I choose to move towards complexity, mystery, and paradox. My practice is a direct response to my lived experience navigating the physical and spiritual world and a collective humanity.