1.27m x 1.02m, Acrylic on canvas.
Artisite's resident reviewer, the eminent academic Christopher P. Bacon writes:
This painting is so self-critical it reviews itself. In fact, it reviews this review, so read on only if prepared to enter the tumble drier of transcendental hygiene. Just as it was noticed by art-marinated moonwalker up helter-skelters (1) Cecil Botty, so it will not escape lemon-juice minded Brooks acolytes that Maeve is the beginning and the end of "make believe". Of course, as Botty also noted, the whole genre 'painting' is, in effect and in cause, a condensed milk analogue of "pain-trains, auto-destructive-mobiles and 'ting". That much is so obvious that its verbalization makes for Otiose Reading (2). But Maeve goes beyond the safety belts - fitted as standard in vehicles of emotoring - and goes headbutt-first for the windbags with a Z.Z. pop. In Maeve, the grammatical is merely on sabbatical, and we are never allowed mistakenly to see it as anything more than a support band. Let's face it, they're probably crap anyway.
Notice what I, the receptor, the conduit of this construction, am up to. Sentences ending in prepositions but comprising propositions are no longer not long, but long sentences are the only option for such an offence on the senses. On the other hand, stiff sentences are ineffectual on liquid narrative. Suspended sentences return to work after 6 weeks and just keep their headings down for a bit. It is the colours and textures in Maeve that set the seen for what isn't going to happen next, and that's where the genius lies- in every sense of the word. Just as the viewer is mesmerically transported to a world in which, say, Lonnie Donegan is the minister for overseas affairs, the waffle of offal-shaped wibbly wobblies on the bamboo-grill (centre of picture) takes hold and we could just as easily be dead newsreaders silhouetted, shuffling papers and scowling only in posthumous celluloid glory. Hence the battle rages between what we perceive, and that on which we can alone raticionate. It is as if a crossword has bumped into a sudoku puzzle in a pub, spilling its pint. The ensuing fracas is Homeric yet homosexy. Ray Winstone turns up and says "oooooooyyyyyy...." when (and only when) each of them gets filled in.
Brooks's latest work in regress is, moreover, regal in its viscerality. Put somewhat spaghettily, it is the artwork formerly known as principal, now a stupid wiggly line and a string of evanescent crap concept albums. Herein lies the artist's revalation and armageddon of the self, and, at the same time, the genesis of someone exactly the same in every respect- only a bit better this time. Intensely close up and personal in painting, while remaining at arm's length, Brooks has eschewed the temptation for an artist of her stature to grandstand, evincing instead the world of sport - tag wrestling with the viewer's sub-conscious whilst a fat bloke from Hull in a leotard pretends to get knocked over for the entertainment of old ladies.The antinomy of Maeve's enemies' entities is its function - possibly even its sit-down do: prawn cocktail; bread roll in dog- turd shape on side-plate; hard butter; 3 different glasses; the lot. It would be both venal and penal if not for its coercive liberality. Its humility is arrogant and self assured, whilst its self effacing lack of confidence creeps into the viewers' perceptual dogging hot-spot in a flash-car: and on its rear windscreen is a 'my other car window sticker isn't funny either' sticker. Maeve: it says exactly what it does on the tin. I'm convinced it's a major contribution to road safety.
(1) Correct at the time of writing. May contain traces of animal products.
(2)Whose personification we might think of as being lost on the murky Mersey estuary of art itself, musing " what's going on- can I get to Widnes?"