Kimberly Brooks Pens Weekly Artist Column on the Huffington Post

Los Angeles, CA – September 12, 2007
Venice-based painter Kimberly Brooks is hosting a new weekly column featuring herself and other contemporary artists on the Huffington Post.  The column, called “First Person Artist”, is the first column on the Huffington Post devoted solely to art and the creative process. The goal is to provide wide exposure for contemporary artists through interviews, sharing artwork and brief essays that tie the work to current events and everyday life. The placement is found on the front page every Saturdays and all weekend in the Living Section. The Huffington Post is a widely viewed publication with over four million unique visitors monthly (www.huffingtonpost.com).  

Longtime collector Arianna Huffington invited Kimberly Brooks to be the resident artist on the site to feature her artwork and her creative process.  “Darling,” Huffington said “you must write about your work, you must show the world your art as you make it.”  Since Brooks felt that exposing the mood swings of her own process in the studio consistently would be a akin to “skiing naked during a blizzard without poles”, she decided instead feature her thoughts occasionally but to use the opportunity to give oxygen to other artists work instead.  During the time that is required to interview an artist and write a couple introductory paragraphs, Brooks calculates that she’ll lose approximately one-eighty hour painting this year but that it is a worthy price to pay for her fellow artists.  In her post “From Miami Basel with Love” Brooks says, “Artists, in my opinion, should be interviewed more about their own work. And it should be everywhere not just the art magazines.”  

A sample of posts that have invited lively discussion range from “The Creative Process in Eight Stages” where Brooks likens the experience of painting to Kubler-Ross’ five stages of Death to “First Person Artist: Defiant Iranian Painter, Abelina Galustian” who paints lingerie-clad women donning revealing burkas whose work was confiscated by Iranian Authorities.  For easy reference you can view all the posts and receive announcements of new ones at www.firstpersonartist.com.

Kimberly Brooks’ work has been featured in numerous juried exhibitions organized by curators from the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art and California Institute of the Arts among others. Her work has been featured in the LA times, Vanity Fair, and Elle among other publications.  Brooks earned her B.A. from UC Berkeley and trained in fine arts at Otis College of Design and UCLA. She lives in Los Angeles and maintains her studio in Venice, CA.  Kimberly Brooks is represented by Taylor De Cordoba in Culver City. For additional information, contact Evelyn Henn at Brooks Studio 310.472.0834 or art@kimberlybrooks.com.