News of a new Gareth Brookes exhibition of embroideries, prints and drawings at London’s 155a Artists Space will no doubt be of huge interest to regular Broken Frontier readers given our long-term coverage of the artist’s practice. To get you in the mood for this must-see show in November we’re revisiting the work of Brookes today at BF in a short bio below as well as publishing the press release giving more details about the event…
Gareth Brookes has a long pedigree in the UK small press scene having been a member of the Alternative Press and a contributor to such pivotal publications as The Comix Reader and various Banal Pig offerings with Steve Tillotson. In 2012 his previously self-published The Black Project won the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition going on to be published by them in 2013. It also won the Broken Frontier Best Graphic Novel Award in 2013 and the French edition was nominated for the prestigious Sélection Officielle at Angoulême this year.
Fashioned in embroidery and linocut, the book details the misadventures of Richard, a youngster who started constructing his first girlfriends from household and found objects. His second Myriad graphic novel A Thousand Coloured Castles combined graphic medicine and suburban mystery in a hallucinatory crayoned work that was also Broken Frontier Award-nominated last year. He recently revisited both graphic novels in a dystopian future one-shot comic Afterwords.
Brookes’ dark wit knows no boundaries or genre limitations and his self-published offerings include the disquieting observational humour of Can I Borrow Your Toilet?, the “psychedelic, semi-pornographic” sci-fi of The Land of My Heart Chokes on Its Abundance, and the spoof illustrated poetry of The Smell of the Wild. In 2014 Avery Hill Publishing brought his and Steve Tillotson’s satirical Manly Boys Annual back into print alongside a new sister publication Comely Girls Annual.
The full press release for the show is presented below…
155a Artist Space presents an exhibition of embroideries, prints and drawings by award-winning graphic novelist Gareth Brookes.
Known for his unusual approach to materials, Brookes has used embroidery, linocut, pressed flowers and even fire to make his unique graphic novels. This show aims to present Brookes’ work outside the books he produces as beautiful, beguiling and powerful artworks in themselves.
The show features new embroideries from his forthcoming work Threadbare, as well as prints and drawings from his graphic novels The Black Project and A Thousand Coloured Castles and his latest short comic Afterwords.
All works will be for sale, plus there’ll be a pop-up comic/graphic novel/zine shop.
There will also be two beginners workshops run by Gareth aimed at those wanting to get started in embroidery, these take place on Sunday 25th November 2-4pm and Monday 26th November 7-9pm. Places are limited so booking is essential. Tickets available here and here.
The show will run from Thursday 22nd–Monday 26th November from 10am–6pm. There will be a private view on Thursday 22nd from 7-9pm.
155a Artists Space
155a Lordship Lane
East Dulwich
SE22 8HX
Follow Gareth Brookes on Twitter here for more updates.
