You live in a church, where you sleep with voodoo dolls

Sometimes I like to think of every painting as a mystery, or perhaps as a crime scene. Something is happening, or has happened, and you are there to figure it out. Interpret every object, every color. What was put in, and what has gone missing from the work? At times a mystery is so compelling you are drawn in right away, scanning the art until you can piece together enough clues to figure out the underlying drama. Other times the mystery is shallow, or you suspect that the artist has put together a random collection of elements, and the search for meaning is like looking for genius in a work by Jackson Pollack. What you end up finding will say more about you than the artist…

Other paintings clearly hide a secret terrain, but it’s one you’d much rather leave unexplored. Some of these representations are blatantly crude, others so shocking or violent or pornographic or dark that you’d rather not get sucked too far into the artist’s world, no matter how compelling it might be. Some works are so complicated and personal that any fruitful hunt for meaning would have to begin with an extended interview of its creator. Context can add power to art, but when art is all about context or an inside joke, I’m content to remain ignorant.

Then there are those rare paintings that compel you to dig deeper, but at the same time push you away. Maybe you want to know more, but then again maybe you don’t. Perhaps this is a mystery you’d rather leave unsolved, rather not get too involved in figuring out. As far as I can tell, the heavyweight champion of these works is Scott G. Brooks, whose art forces you to ask What the hell?, but then immediately makes you wonder whether that’s a question you really want answered.
Shown above: “Food Chain”, by Brooks.