Nell Brookfield, always fascinated by watching and studying people and their cultures, read anthropology at UCL. For her, the practice of art, using the pen, brush, or camera, has been a natural extension of this curiosity; a way of observing those around her, both playfully and honestly. Her work fuses together memories and everyday experiences. For Nell, the process of drawing is her way of making sense of both the world and herself.
Brookfield’s humorous paintings exaggerate the situations they portray while exploring the strangeness of human behavior and rituals. The artist builds up thin layers of natural pigments mixed with acrylic medium and oil paint onto linen canvases, creating works that concentrate on texture and feature bright colors and intensely patterned surfaces. Brookfield’s compositions focus on body language and touch, and appear to be cropped from larger works—inviting viewers to imagine what lurks just beyond the canvas.