Above: Steph Brooke, Wildflowers of the Valley, 2023. Acrylic painting, 150 x 150cm. $3450. Courtesy: the artist.
The work of Darwin-based artist Steph Brooke is both a study of the Australian landscape, and a study of the artist herself. Her piece Wildflowers of the Valley was executed during a time of great change for the
artist, when a newborn joined the family. “The dance of the underpainting was a lot like my rhythms in early motherhood: add, subtract, edit, rinse, repeat,” she says, adding that baby wipes are particularly good for modulating surfaces and removing tracts of colour. The work was therefore born from the cyclical growth and change central to a thriving ecosystem, and this combination of chaos and vitality is felt in the painting.
Attention is paid to the tiniest of minutia – clusters of pollen gently fall and float, hanging boughs trembling in an unseen breeze. Many of the floral subjects are new within the artist’s repertoire, reflecting a difference she felt within herself. They enter the picture plane from every angle in a cacophony of line and colour and in mesmerising layers. Brooke wants collectors to notice changes in her artworks over time, “the way a garden changes through the seasons”. Wildflowers of the Valley is more than a landscape, it is also a self-portrait, with a depth of sentiment that is a testament to Brooke’s skill with a brush (and a wet wipe).