Jarvis Brookfield: Inaquien

About

Opening this September at LCB Depot, Leicester is Jarvis Brookfield's first solo show entitled Inaquien. Pronounced as In-ah - Kwee - en, a made-up word meaning inner acquaintance is an exhibition composed of multiple imaginal, psychedelic, and vibrantly colourful paintings drawn from his personal experiences with altered states of consciousness.

Inspired by the altered states of consciousness induced by entheogens, Brookfield has been considering the notion of what it means to be human from an internal perspective. What is the stuff of altered states of consciousness? why is it possible to experiences different states of mind other than the baseline one of day-to-day life or sleep? And what can they tell us about what it means to be human? Are all questions that bubble unanswered beneath the surface of Brookfield's practice. The Tibetans call this mysterious inner world what may be glimpsed in altered states or dreams, Sambhogakaya which Sogyal Rinpoche a Buddhist teacher defined as the dimension of complete enjoyment and the field of plenitude (abundance), that exists beyond duality, space, and time. In Islamic cosmology, it's referred to interchangeably as Al Malakut or Alam Al Mithal which translates as the imaginal realm where all thoughts and ideas are manifested, including the supernatural. And Carl Gustav Jung the famous Swiss psychoanalyst defined it as the collective symbolic unconscious. The list goes on. But whatever name it's been defined as, there have undoubtedly been numerous references to this interface between the physical and spiritual dimensions.

Engaging with the imagination through drawing and exercising his intuition and memory of past experiences with entheogens, Brookfield has combined traditional and expressive painting techniques to articulate four elements that he found to be intensely present in his own experiences. He defines them as energy, vitality, luminosity, and dimensionality. As a result of exploring these elements, the paintings are colourful, whimsical, and non-representational, yet recognisable, worldly, and alien forms slip in and out of focus creating the sensation of a hallucination.

"I hope that this show will open an opportunity for you to let your imagination run free. Throughout the journey of creating these paintings, my desire has been to create worlds that are like playgrounds for the imagination and respites for the soul, all in service to inspire a sense of awe and wonder."

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Jarvis Brookfield works with acrylic paint and drawing to explore his experiences with altered states of consciousness and the internal world of what it means to be human. He was born in Croydon, England in 1992, grew up in Derby, and studied Fine art in Leicester, where he attended De Montfort University. His work has been featured on Creativeboom and the cover of Artit magazine, and he is currently pursuing a life of artmaking in Leicester, England.

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To request a catalogue please email Jarvisbrookfieldart@gmail.com

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Thank you and I look forward to seeing you there!