Brooke McGowen lives in Northern California and creates free-flowing, acrylic paintings within the setting of an outdoor studio. In 2011, McGowen began making what she describes as “flow paintings”. She had just left New York City for Peekskill, New York before moving west. Since then, her paintings have maintained a consistent correspondence to the immobile, vast and empty landscape: layers of poured colors first accumulate, then mix and mingle before drying into representations that render either mountains or dense, untamed forestation.

McGowen’s most recent paintings are a response to the Covid-era of 2020. “Landscape #2” (2020) portrays a tall red rock at sunset, as it towers over a greenbelt of trees and an iridescent blue lake. The bright, background colors of yellow and orange push the peaceful vista to the foreground while “Landscape #3” (2020) presents a mountain range that stretches out horizontally beneath a dark blue sky. “Mountain Sky Pines” (2020) presents two green trees that appear immediately in front, before the appearance of a suspended vista while “Magic Mountain” (2020) reflects the artist’s daily experience of seeing Mount Shasta. Her combination of blue, green and white hues with earth tones impart her fascination of living within an ambiguous and unpredictable nature.

Brooke McGowen initially studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and then continued at the Art Academy in Vienna, Austria. After living in Munich, Germany and Portugal, the artist returned to New York City in 2008 and stayed until 2011. Her work appeared in group exhibitions at Exit Art and North Light Gallery. While in Peekskill, McGowen received a solo show in 2012 titled “Political Paintings” at the Fashion Moda Gallery. This was followed by inclusion in a group show titled “Music to My Eyes” that took place at the Paramount Gallery. In 2017 and 2019, her work was featured at the Hudson Guild Gallery in Chelsea, New York as well as M. David & Co. Gallery located in Brooklyn, New York. She received a solo show in 2017 at 254 Broome Street and in March 2020, the Little Raven Gallery of San Francisco, California showed her paintings from 2019 and 2020 in a solo exhibition titled “New Paintings”.