An artist reinvents her work in an utterly modern way.
Photo by Robin May
While some artists can wax poetic about what inspires their work, Brooke Wilke Hoogendoorn's pieces speak for themselves.
"What inspires me? That's a hard question for me. I'm very, very visual, and that is pretty much what inspires me. I wouldn't know another way to say it," she says. "I'm just visual."
However inspiration strikes, it's clearly working. Hoogendoorn's pieces are hard to describe and easy to spot. And they have changed dramatically as of late. Hoogendoorn, you see, has long been a painter tasked with creating the visions of others in many cases.
"I do everything. Decorative painting, distressed furniture, I've painted on walls, on ceiling, murals, commissioned canvas work," she says of her background in decorative painting over the last 10 years.
But the quite pregnant mother of one says she's had a realization that she may not go back to the grueling decorative world. She's rather enjoying her new endeavor of abstract pieces, which is what struck our eye.
"I want to just focus on my artwork now," she says.
Hoogendoorn loves both color and muted pieces. Still early into a new journey as an artist apart from her earlier commissioned work that often had a folk art vibe, she is still finding herself as an artist in many ways - something artists sometimes do for a lifetime.
"I'm in this huge transition in my life and art right now. I'm getting out of doing what people want me to do anymore and to be able to do what I want to do right now. This is where I want to go from here on out," Hoogendoorn says.
Despite this new chapter, Hoogendoorn remains confident in her earlier work, noting she has some of the pieces hanging in her own home.
There is a coincidence in the timing of this fresh outlook: She is awaiting the birth of her second child.
"I feel like I'm really reinventing myself," Hoogendoorn says.