Pegan Brooke makes paintings inspired by her studio
environs on the Pacific Coast in Bolinas, California and
in her San Francisco Studio, near the Bay. She follows a
parallel practice of creating video/poems shot by the
Aven River in Pont-Aven, France and on the Inland Seto
Sea in Japan. These video/poems inform and inspire her
ideas and future paintings.
Light falling on water, as visual metaphor for the
fleeting quality of experience, is a central theme of her
work. She thinks of her paintings as closely related to
nature and certain forms of architecture. It is her desire
that through the paintings, she might create a space for
the viewer in which they might slow down, in the hope
of encouraging the viewer’s own thoughts and feelings,
and to contemplate what is important to them.
Brooke has exhibited extensively, and her work is owned by the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Des Moines Art Museum; the Berkeley Art Museum (BAMPFA); the Swig
Collection, San Francisco; and the Anderson Collection,
Menlo Park, California. Her work has been widely reviewed, including in Art in America, The New York
Times, Artweek, Examiner.com, and Art Ltd. Magazine.