I’m excited to announce that my work is prominently featured in the upcoming film Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret based on the novel of the same name by Judy Blume.
The mother character, Barbara, is played by Rachel McAdams, as an artist. I was honored to be approached to provide the paintings and visual language for her character. Over twenty paintings in various stages of completion are seen throughout the film.
My participation is especially meaningful as I vividly remember, as a young girl, the way I admired and observed the adult women around me. My friends and I were all scared and excited to “become women”. Our bible was Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret. We read it more than once, and whole passages were memorized. Later in life, when I myself was a young mother with a daughter who would also be on the precipice of the exact same feelings and experiences, motherhood/childhood played a major role in my subject matter at that time.
The art director and director poured through my archive and selected works from Mom’s Friends, Technicolor Summer which focus on memory and motherhood in the wake of the sexual revolution. Whether by coincidence or intuition, the director, Kelly Fremon Craig, honed in on this earlier work, the very same paintings I was working on when I too, like Barbara, was a young mother. The paintings are prominent in almost every interior setting of heroine’s home and fittingly serve as a critical element of the story.
I saw an early screening of the film a few weeks ago and loved it. It was so startling and wonderful to see my works on a big screen, sometimes rescaled and other times like another character. Enjoy!
***PRESS RELEASE***
Kimberly Brooks’ Paintings Used Exclusively for Artist / Mother in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
LOS ANGELES – Gracie Films’ new release, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” is a movie based on the bestselling book of the same name by Judy Blume and features works by Los Angeles-based artist Kimberly Brooks for the heroine’s artist mother, played by Rachel McAdams.
Kimberly Brooks is known for both her figuration and large-scale landscapes. The movie features paintings from earlier in her career when her main subject was portraiture. The paintings are prominent in almost every interior setting of McAdams’ character’s home and fittingly serve as a critical element of her story. Over twenty paintings in various stages of completion are seen throughout the film.
Painted while Brooks was herself a mother rearing young children, the works often feature her own children and very much reflect a young woman who processes the world and motherhood on the canvas. Other portraits used in the film include images from Brooks’ earlier acclaimed series Mom’s Friends, featuring her mother and her mother’s friends in the the wake of the ‘70s sexual revolution, when the modern woman was taking shape.
About Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret: Written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig, the movie closely follows the plot of the beloved Judy Blume novel, which centers on 11-year-old Margaret Simon, a sixth grader who moves with her parents from New York City to the suburb of Farbrook, N.J. Upon publication, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was an immediate success, landing on the New York Times’ list of outstanding books of the year and remaining highly regarded for its frank portrayal of childhood. Executive Producer James L. Brooks produced the film under his Gracie Films banner. The film premieres April 28, 2023.
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Amy Fine Collins, Oil on Linen, 2011. Kimberly Brooks.
Also featured is work from Brooks’ The Stylist Project, in which famous stylists styled themselves and posed for portraits. Groundbreaking at the time — in the 2010s — the rigid line between the art and fashion worlds was starting to blur.
Prominently featured paintings from The Stylist Project series include writer/editor Amy Fine Collins from Vanity Fair and writer/curator Rose Apodaca Jones who was then covering fashion for the Los Angeles Times. This series received international acclaim and were featured in major fashion publications in multiple languages. Kimberly Brooks’ art brings an added layer of depth and emotion to this film, and her contributions are sure to be a highlight for viewers.