Ian Brooks
My work focuses on landscape, aiming to capture the unqiue atmosphere and sense of place of a location through close observation. A particular obsession is the remote, bleak, often inhospitable and fragile landscapes of the polar regions in which I have spent considerable time working over many years as an academic in the field of climate science.
I work primarily with the traditional etching techniques of sugar lift and spit-bite aquatint, building up the image in layers of tightly-controlled drawing, and more abstract, loose, semi-random marks which mimic the natural textures of the landscape. While working on the etchings I find a constant tension between a natural tendency towards realism and finely rendered detail and a desire to simplify and abstract the image to achieve a looser rendering – trying to maintain the energy of sketches made out in the wild.
Don’t hesitate to email us on info@cambridgegallery.co.uk or call us on 01223 324222 if you have any questions about specific pieces.
