Born 1987, Exeter.

Lives and works in Cambridgeshire.

Flo Brooks is a painter of modern life. Their practice can be considered as a revising of traditional genre painting: at the very centre of each painting

is a personal reflection on work, leisure and the in-between. Speaking of their approach, Brooks has said: “It feels fundamental to think critically about

the ways we connect with each other, and what this might look like in our own lives. I make sense of things through lived experience, through intimate

relationships and the communities I’m part of, whether that’s the rural community I grew up in, queer and trans communities, art networks or my

blood family”.

Working with acrylic, either on shaped wooden panels or appliquéd onto found fabric, Brooks’ recent work has focussed on trans and gender non-

conforming histories. Embedded in the materials of domestic space, which they describe as ‘the first space of dreaming, fantasising, worlding,’ each

work originates from fragments of the depicted figure’s lives, gleaned from newspaper clippings, autobiographical descriptions and visits to the

places they lived or worked. Collaging together different places, eras and individuals, Brooks’ works resist simplified representations of trans and

gender non- conforming lives, and attempt to open up a flexible space for the unfolding of multiple perspectives, shifting identities and evolving

relationships. They are not historical portraits but dream-like scenarios: fragmented, mutable, incomplete.

Frieze review - Queer History According to Flo Brooks, Elizabeth Fullerton

Time Out - Review: Flo Brooks, Be Tru To Your Rec at Project Native Informant, London

Featured show - The Shock of the Now Issue 37, Hector Campbell

Awkward Spaces - an essay by Paul Clinton, Grand Parade Press, Brighton CCA

Hunger Magazine - Flo Brooks’ paintings playfully pick apart our “mindlessness under capitalism”

Artforum - Critics Pick Flo Brooks at Cubitt Gallery

Elephant - Flo Brooks Gives Visibility to Trans Experience in Playful Paintings

It’s Nice That - Flo Brooks' paintings of liminality are those "almost everyone can relate with"

Solo/ Duo Exhibitions:

2024

Statements, Project Native Informant at Art Basel

2023

Harmonycrumb, Spike Island

Inner Bark Out, (Public Commission) Clapham Public Realm Programme produced by Studio Voltaire in partnership with

This is Clapham BID

2022

Be tru to your rec, Project Native Informant, London

2021

Angletwich, Tramway, Glasgow

2020

Angletwich, Brighton CCA, Brighton

Project Native Informant at Art Basel Hong Kong

2018

Scrubbers, Project Native Informant, London

What Comes to Matter, Plymouth Art Weekender, Plymouth

2017

Is now a good time?, Cubitt Gallery, London

2015

Notes for Turtle Salon (with Charlotte Prodger, curated by Irene Revell), White Cubicle Toilet Gallery, London

Heaving the Lead, Cecil Sharp House, London

Group Exhibitions:

2022

Cubitt 30, Victoria Miro, London

The only thing more slippery than the elbow, Auction House, Redruth

2021

Bodies in Space, MIRROR, Plymouth

Seen, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, Cornwall

Beano: The Art of Breaking the Rules, Somerset House, London

2020

Found In Translation, Trans Vegas Festival (online)

CONDO London, Project Native Informant, London

2019

Kiss My Genders, Hayward Gallery, London

2018

Survey, Jerwood Space, London

Deep down body thirst (curated by Radclyffe Hall), Glasgow International, Glasgow

2017

Outskirts ( a collaborative bookwork / project with Makina Books ) book launch, White Cubicle Toilet Gallery, London

2016

Inland Festival, Redruth

Retrospective, Cecil Sharp House, London

Whose body where?, Open Source, Gillett Square, London

Awards:

Paul Hamlyn Award, 2021

Plymouth Platform Award, 2018

Collections:

Arts Council Collection, British Council, Government Art Collection, Soho House



For all enquiries etc. please contact Project Native Informant.

Otherwise you can reach me at flobrooks14@gmail.com