ABOUT
Artist Bio
Andy Brooks is a digital photographer who works exclusively with cell phones. The settings and filters available on these devices are critical to his process and allow him to manipulate and transform his images to create his distinct style. His work explores themes of consumer culture, particularly by using the cell phone as a tool for production rather than consumption and by integrating the act of shopping into his art practice.
Brooks possesses a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from Watkins College of Art and Design and a Master’s of Architecture from Clemson University. Originally from Clemson, South Carolina, Brooks now resides in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Recently his work has exhibited in Chattanooga’s Association for Visual Arts Gallery (AVA), ClearStory Art Gallery and CHA ART SPACE and has been featured in Chattanooga's Walnut Brach Art Magazine and the internet-based magazine, CanvasRebel.
Artist Statement
I feel we have become consumers who have forfeited a lot of our skills to consumption. Like the consumer, I am replacing the artist's skills with consumption by transmuting everyday, mass-produced items into art through the lens of a modern consumer device. Instead of following the typical avenues of the artist, I follow the avenues of the consumer and integrate the act of shopping into my practice by searching for inspiration on shelves and use the items I purchase as the primary compositional elements in my work.
I work at a micro scale, photographing everyday objects with my cell phone camera and then create large prints to magnify the details with in the items. After photographing the objects, I apply the Negative filter to invert the objects’ colors and then experiment with the settings available on my phone—adjusting brightness, exposure and color temperature—to transform these mass produced items into colorful, high-contrast abstract images full of ethereal beauty. With this process I am aiming to replace the techniques of the artists’ hand with the details available within mass-produced goods and redefine the boundaries of artistic expression by elevating the everyday objects that pass through our hands into a medium for artistic expression.
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I am interested in the tension that exists between the producer and the consumer and strive to dissolve this dichotomy by transforming the consumer into the producer/artist. In a world driven by mass production, I challenge the viewer to reconsider the role of the consumer, suggesting that consumption itself can be a reflection of and a reaction to the world we inhabit. I am inverting the roles of the producer and the consumer and seeking to illuminate the artistic potential within the act of consumption. My work is a call to engage with the objects that surround us not just as passive consumers but as active participants in the ever-evolving narrative of man's identity and his place in the world.