Category: Series: The Stylist Project

KIMBERLY BROOKS: The Stylist Project

The art world. It’s way more serious and important than every other industry! This thinking at least seems to persist even though the field of contemporary art has maintained an open flirtation with its sassy sister, the fashion industry, since long before even Andy Warhol trotted his wacky wigs around Studio 54 with the likes of Diane von Fürstenberg. There is a mutual fascination between the two fields, and yet it seems that the art world would prefer to keep its consorting with the fashion industry confined strictly to social events, rather than consider fashion (so low-brow!) as a worthy subject matter for actual works of art.

Los Angeles-based artist, Kimberly Brooks’, current solo show at Taylor De Cordoba gallery in Culver City breaks with this norm to explore the intrigue of the fashion industry’s most iconic stylemakers—without the precept of farce or condemnation. The Stylist Project (on view through April 3rd) presents Brooks’ latest body of work—a series of oil painted portraits of fashion industry insiders, including stylist to the starts and Bravo TV fixture, Rachel Zoe, and award winning costume designer and Madonnaʼs personal stylist Arianne Phillips, among others.

The work on view blends the fields of art and fashion astutely, presenting the fashionable set as they have styled themselves, while at the same time drawing upon the ages-old artistic tradition of portraiture. The regal positions of some of the sitters recall Renaissance royals, and the sprawled poses of others touch on the early Modern depiction of courtesans, such as Edouard Manet’s Olympia.

The Stylist Project is the third solo show for Brooks at Taylor De Cordoba. The first two, Mom’s Friends (2007) and Technicolor Summer (2008), explored much more personal subject matter than the present show. Brooks’ outward shift to now document the fashion industry with this latest series has garnered a lot of attention from media and publications that wouldn’t normally publish gushing articles about fine artists. At the Taylor De Cordoba gallery, they’ve laid out a stack of glossies with Brooks’ name inked onto them. When I asked Heather Taylor, Director of Taylor De Cordoba, to discuss the widespread reception that this exhibition has received, she told me, “The bottom line is that people are hungry for this dialogue and Kimberly is pulling the curtain back on the fashion world, which up until the past year—with the popularity of [the film] ‘The September Issue’ and [the TV show] ‘The Rachel Zoe Project’—had been fairly mysterious.”

New York born, Los Angeles based, Kimberly Brooks maintains her studio in Venice, CA. She earned her BA from UC Berkeley and trained in fine arts at Otis College of Art and Design and UCLA. Her work has been included in numerous juried exhibitions, including at Pleaides Contemporary Art, New York; and Phillips de Pury Auction House, Los Angeles.

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March 2, 2010 | Ellen Caldwell

In Victor Bockris’ biography on Andy Warhol, Warhol describes his dream of attending one of his famed parties and mingling with all of his paintings’ subjects who have magically come to life around him.

Last night, painter Kimberly Brooks got to live out Warhol’s dream. Brooks’ current solo show “The Stylist Project” opened Saturday at Culver City gallery Taylor De Cordoba and last night, Vanity Fair, Dior, and Taylor de Cordoba came together to throw a one-night-only soiree benefiting P.S. Arts .

Rose Apodaca in front of “Rose Apodoca” Oil on Linen

Kimberly’s endeavor is lofty — she has gathered stylists and fashion icons who function somewhat like the Wizard of Oz, working behind the scenes to shape current trends and styles. One by one, she has asked these trend-shapers to style themselves and sit for her in the comfort of their own homes, closets, apartments, or backyards. The effect is at once compelling and inviting. Brooks turns the camera and canvas onto those who are more accustomed to being behind them, but in doing so, she establishes a level of comfort with the stylists that is not only recognizable in the portraits, but also felt at the crowded event.

Weaving in and out of the gallery’s rooms, attendees could see Brooks’ jewel-toned portraits intermingled with the portrayed stylists themselves, including Janie Bryant, Nancy Steiner, Rose Apodaca, Cameron Silver, Jessica Paster, and Arianne Philips – to name a few. What was extraordinary about the night is that here you had an event with 15 portraits of unique people who aren’t necessarily famous or immediately recognizable, but they were all in the room with you and with their art. Imagine if you went to a museum, and all the people in the paintings were alive and interactive. That’s exactly what happened Monday and it was fascinating — taking the night out of the realm of static art show, and making it a real happening.

Ginnifer Goodwin

Actor Ginnifer Goodwin sat for her portrait two weeks before the show and her portrait was promptly sold with 100% of the proceeds gone to benefit P.S. Arts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving children’s lives by bringing arts education to under-served schools and their communities.

Notable attendees included Michael Govan, Norman Lear, Arianna Huffington, Abbie Cornish, Nia Vardalos, Ginnifer Goodwin, James Van Der Beek, Tracee Ellis Ross, Jordana Brewster, Marisa Tomei, Perrey Reeves and Christina Hendricks.

“The Stylist Project” runs at Taylor De Cordoba 2660 S. La Cienega Blvd., through April 3, 2010.

Kimberly Brooks’ The Stylist Project is a series of portraits that focuses on the professional stylist and fashion-industry insider as its subjects.  The Los Angeles exhibition features paintings of some of the world’s most influential style-makers, including owner A + R and former WWD Bureau Chief Rose Apodaca; Madonna’s personal stylist Arianne Phillips; New York Times Magazine stylist Elizabeth Stewart; Mad Men costume designer Janie Bryant; and stylist to the stars Rachel Zoe, among others.
By bringing these behind the scenes players on canvas, The Stylist Project comments on fashion and those responsible for setting the trends.  As Brooks says, “It’s great to contribute to a conversation about fashion and art — about fashion in art.”
Shortly after her successful 2007 exhibit Mom’s Friends, which focused Brooks’ brush on the personal relationships of her mother, as seen from Brooks’s childhood perspective, the artist found inspiration in the influence of Coco Chanel on the works of Henri Matisse.  However, whereas Matisse’s work was influenced indirectly, Brooks sought to make fashion and style the subject of a series while reflecting the personality within a portrait.  Apodaca adds, “I decided to wear the dress I was married in just the year before.  That, the vintage horn chair, the rush of color… it all just seems very personal when I look at it.”
Stewart was also impressed by the artist’s dedication to a soulful rendering, saying, “She came into my home and worked with me on the setting… it was very important to her that it reflected me and my style.”
Fashion, more than any other art form, is temporal; it shifts from season to season. Although there is a hyper-articulate niche in society that directly engages in a dialogue about fashion-as-an-art, it is most commonly a passive interaction.  Brooks is conscious of this fleeting nature, saying, “Someone will get dressed up only for a moment — for a movie, a TV show, a red carpet – and it comes and it goes.  I wonder – what will theses portraits look like in a hundred years?”
Check out The Stylist Project, on exhibition at the Taylor de Cordoba Gallery, Tuesday thru Staurday, 11 am. – 5:30 pm, until April 3
by Panagiotis Giokas