All Photos By Gail

On Saturday night, Geoffrey and I made an unplanned pit stop into the Judith Charles Gallery, having been attracted in from the sidewalk, to view an eye catching exhibit from San Diego based artist Kelsey Brookes. Entitled Better Living Through Chemistry, this show features a large body of work and is Brookes‘ first solo exhibition in New York.

Brookes’ appealing visual style derives from his background in molecular biology, which, of course, explains why these round canvases look like acid trip influenced interpretations of human brain scans. According to the press release, “Brookes has taken his knowledge of scientific images and expanded them into extremely intricate paintings that explore the mutability of human consciousness.

His painstaking process involves the painting of hundreds of concentric shapes that are both psychedelic and grounded in empiricism.” This exhibit reminded me a bit of Holton Rower’s equally colorful Pour Paintings show at The Hole from last year.

The many round canvases vary in size from 12-inches in diameter up to a size that nearly fills an entire wall. While they are very similar, each one is uniquely different from the next.

This One Covers nearly an Entire Wall

There are also a selection of large rectangular canvases with designs that are very similar to a sky full of exploding fireworks. I am not sure how much longer this show will be up, but you should definitely check it out if you are in the neighborhood.

Needless to say, but you can see I am about to, Brookes’ paintings create a very psychedelic personal viewing experience, especially to those who are, or have ever been, as Jimi Hendrix so precisely put it, “Experienced.”

Kelsey Brookes Better Living Through Chemistry is on Exhibit through January 2014 (I’m guessing this means through the end of the month at the Judith Charles Gallery (formerly Charles Bank Gallery), Located at 196 Bowery (at Spring street), New York, NY 10012.