Works at art exhibition just scratch the 'surface'

An exhibition last week featured works by Bart Brooks. An exhibition sponsored by the Philomathean Society brought the works of artist Bart Brooks to Houston Hall's Bowl Room last week, displaying his paintings before an audience of both students and prospective buyers. A Philadelphia resident who works sporadically from his Locust Street apartment, Brooks paints on the surfaces of what most people throw away as garbage. The painter said he discovers such "found surfaces" in the streets and alleys he walks through on his daily journeys into Center City from his apartment near campus. Brooks uses the human form as the motif for his work, colorfully painting on the surfaces of discarded doors, coffee tables and plywood. "There's a famous story that tells of Michelangelo's walking through the streets and -- after seeing a piece of marble laying off to the side -- stopping to visualize the work he can make with that piece of material," Brooks said. "He stopped to read the essence of that marble and see how he could mold and craft that essence into art." Brooks added that he has imitated Michelangelo's process throughout his career and can now see artistic possibilities in the objects he finds. The choice and tone of Brooks' art is a product of his spiritual outlook, which he said developed from the time he spent in Italy as a teenager. The painter, seeking to combine themes from his hereditary Judaism as well as Christianity, said once that it had "been my aim since then to glorify God through the medium that brought me to Him -- art being the medium I have chosen to preach my sermons. "The Bible says to seek your Creator in youth and it would be very fulfilling to know that these students might find a little of theirs in these paintings," he continued. Echoing the possibility of such a search for God through art, College senior and Philomathean Society President Antonio Shagnasti noted that Brook's portrayals of the human form brought him a step closer to understanding God's presence in his own relationships. And College senior and Philomathean Society Art Director April Richard added that "the art has a lack of pretension and is very earnest -- it's real to experience something so honest." As an avid patron of Philadelphia's coffee houses and cafes, Brooks has formed several relationships with University students. "I always see Bart helping art students from Penn and other schools and I thought that would help make the exhibition special," said Richard, who purchased a work by Brooks after being struck by the "honesty of the paintings." Richard met Brooks in a now-closed cafe called Diva and recalled watching him sit alone with his drink until someone would join him and begin talking about his art. The opportunity to exhibit artwork in a public setting is a unique one for Brooks, who said the displays he had in the basement of a Philadelphia church was the only previous public exposure of his work. "I was overjoyed when they asked me to do this show -- the past ten years I've had shows in that church but now I feel like help is coming from somewhere," Brooks said. Brooks' exhibition -- which ended Thursday -- continued a tradition of art displays sponsored by the Philomathean Society. Such shows have previously featured artists from both Philadelphia and Manhattan's SoHo district. The exhibitions -- usually held in Philo's fourth-floor art gallery in College Hall -- will soon return to their traditional venue with greater regularity.