Libby Brooks - Open Studios

Libby uses a variety of materials including metals poured from her own foundry, working at a variety of scales from handheld to pieces several metres.

My work:
I’m a sculptor working in a variety of materials and scales responding to fundamental questions around existence. My desire is to grow so quiet and to work so deeply to participate fully in the mystery within which we are all embedded. I consider my works ‘precipitations’ – a process of intense observation, sense making and reflection folds inwards to reinvent something with a similarly charged essence. The Earth’s crust, where human and animal life scratches the surface, weather batters, worms, beetles and moles dig, is probed to uncover visual, psychological and poetic associations. The broader landscape or any remnant of it – the broken, the leftover, the discarded and the overlooked is of equal interest. Experience is distilled into organic forms which simultaneously invite and resist classification emitting a mysterious and unrelenting life force – we long for the stories behind them… often making them up.

My studios:
Welcome to my home, a 4 acre site where I am inspired by nature every day. Visitors will have a chance to take a peek behind the studio doors in a working sculptors studio and see work in progress and have the opportunity to talk with me about methods, processes, challenges and highs of lows of being a fine artist. There may be some etchings and sculptures for sale but my primary aim for open studios this year is to share my work and engage in interesting reflective dialogue with visitors and answer any questions. All visitors are welcome. I will be continuing to work in the studio throughout open studios so don’t expect a clean gallery space! I may be carving foam, making silicone moulds or you may even be lucky enough to catch me on a day when I will be doing a metal pour in my foundry – especially if you email me in advance and I know you are interested!

Please note this is a working studio with sharp tools, materials and chemicals so all children must be kept under close supervision. Well behaved dogs are also welcome.