Past Exhibitions
Reimagining Regina: Past and Present
Rachel Eleanor Brook produced, directed and edited Reimagining Regina: Past and Present, an artist film exploration of the themes that arose from community activity. With support from Wycombe 89 Media and Artists Bella Street Fenn and Madeleine Smyth Rachel explored the idea of past and present rituals around memory and memorial and how we celebrate life and think about death. The film’s action was inspired by the painting A Roman Funeral by Ronald Embleton and on learning that Regina’s Tombstone was unearthed next to what is now a supermarket car park.
Gary Carter X Rachel Brook at High Bridge Works
17 Jan – 17 Feb 2022. Abstract acrylic, oil and mixed media works from two generations of North-East Artists exploring the use of bold shape and colour and experimental approaches to image production.
High Bridge Works | Gary Carter | Rachel Brook
Behold
Behold was a mixed media abstract visual art exhibition that ran between 22 July – 29 July 2021, displaying a body of work produced throughout the COVID-19 global pandemic in response to an abstract exploration of dimensional space and colour as metaphor for shifting socio-political perspectives on diversity of ability and knowledge in the age of information.
This was the first exhibition at B&D Studios since March 2020 due to UK COVID-19 restrictions and one of the last solo exhibitions in both B&D Studios and Commercial Union House before the building closed as part of Newcastle City Council’s capital redevelopment plans.
“The exhibition title is a shortened version of the main exhibition image “Behold The Tesseract”. It is a celebration of the tesseract (or hyper cube), a four dimensional shape that can be observed from multiple perspectives. Each time you view the shape you see something new, observing the shape from multiple angles, considering the different interconnected cubes forming the whole shape and the central point of focus, seemingly changing position before your eyes or when you look again.”
“When explored artistically the shape offers both challenges in its construction and opens doorways to new avenues of visual experimentation.”
As a visual artist and arts freelancer I produce abstract visual art, artist film/moving-image and digital art.
“I began to think philosophically about the tesseract during the first UK lockdown and what it represented to me about my understanding of the world and the lives of so many people interlinked by common ground and yet fragmented by individual experience.
“In the confusion and uncertainty of the pandemic the tesseract offered me an avenue of structure and boundaries in form whilst representing diversity of thought in the multiple viewable perspectives. One can have two or more opposing thoughts at one time and value (or reject) all equally. I feel like we exist right now in this pivotal moment in history where polarised sociopolitical consciousness is becoming more blurred and spherical.”
My artist film work presents a range of dream-like perspectives, often combining surrealism with art documentary. I live with an invisible disability that impacts my sleep, physical and mental energy levels and mental health. The more personal aspects of this work include approaches to the visual and ambient perspectives of living with Narcolepsy.
Rachel Eleanor Brook 