brooke Fitzsimons' paintings
Their brushwork is hidden, their texture flattened by the constant back and forth of soft varnishing brushes. They seem to evolve subtly and mysteriously; depictions of natural forms slowly receding through layers of glazes into near invisibility. But a closer, longer look can take us past the sheen of the paint and the distancing effects of Brooke's immaculate surfaces. Like an interior of a room dimly glimpsed through reflective glass on a bright day, we find unsuspected depths and complexities. This insistence on multiple and contradictory spaces within her paintings - of reflection, perspective and depth on the one hand, flatness and the beautiful materiality of her paint and canvas on the other is born of her contemplation of perception and the nature of painting itself, which can carry and reconcile all these contradictions within it.
Tim Maguire, London.