On the “City Lights” series “Speaking of Art,” local artists share insights into their influences, processes and experiences in town. Amani Brooker is an Atlanta-based painter. She specializes in gouache portraiture, with highly stylized, vividly colorful faces often floating in suspension, their features sometimes underlaid with dream-like landscapes.
One such portrait series currently in progress is called “Holding Space.”
“I find that in doing floating heads, it’s already giving that viewer that sense of just focusing on the mind,” said Brooker. “Within the shadows and the cast shadows of the face, I paint landscapes within them, and these landscapes usually have a sun or a moon that acts as another symbolic point of focus for meditation.”
An only child who spent much of her abundant free time drawing, Brooker still calls on many of her early inspirations for ideas today; Disney, anime, comics and video games still spark joy and influence her visual style. After attending SCAD Atlanta, Brooker had fallen in love with the city and stayed put.
“There’s just this vibe, this down-to-earth, honest, unapologetic, bright, creative vibe that I really haven’t felt anywhere else,” she said.
