Associate Q&As with Karima Brooke

Introduction

My name is Karima Brooke. I did a Foundation Year in Leamington Spa and then had children very young and didn’t go back to art school until my mid-30s. I did a brilliant course at Coventry Poly, Craft Materials and Design, where I specialised in textiles. In the past, my practice was rather sporadic, due to the need to earn a living, but I’ve been doing a lot more in the past 10 years. I’ve lived in Oxford for over 20 years now. The last couple of years have been very good for me, partly because I’ve had films made of my poetry and textiles as part of Coventry City of Culture. I like combining words - my own poetry, translations of other people’s poems, typically Urdu or Spanish - and images. The images I use in these textile collage ‘illustrations’ often update the themes I feel are implicit in the poems, so there’s references to Black Lives Matter, Rhodes Must Fall, Free Kashmir, child labour in cotton production, discrimination against minorities in India, and so on.

What are you currently working on?

Currently, I’m working on a series of mixed media paintings that are typical views of Oxford with strange beings in them- so, I recently finished ‘No. 1 Ship Street with Celebrities’ and I’ve almost finished ‘The Sheldonian Theatre with Angels’. I think the next one will be of the Botanic Gardens with some strange visitors! More seriously, I’m planning another translation of a poem (about a woman in a ‘temporary marriage’) and a textile piece to accompany it.

Where do you work? Do you have studio space?

I work at home, in the spare room - which is very small - so most of the textile work I do on the dining table! I have had periods of sharing a studio space, but it's not only the expense which is the downside but also that I’m quite a chatty sort and easily distracted! I concentrate better at home.

What are your other (work) commitments if any?

I really enjoy one-to-one teaching - you learn so much about people, as well as the subject matter. I’ve just completed writing a 15 sonnet cycle, called ‘Gifts from Students’ and I intend to illustrate it with ink drawings and produce a chap-book. I discovered from a visit to Banbury Museum that Oxfordshire used to be quite a centre for chap-book printing and publishing, so I’m in the right place!

How does your Associate membership benefit you?

My Associate membership benefits me from meeting other artists who I might not otherwise meet -we are all busy people. There are also some brilliant courses I’ve heard about through OVADA - Liz Gascoigne’s one on the app Brushes Redux, for example, which fellow OVADA member Imogen Rigden helped me get to, as I don’t have a car. Brushes is now something I use every day. I could probably do with a refresher course, because I’m aware I only use a fraction of its functions! I’d really like to get to know more of the OVADA artists better.

What are you hoping to achieve over the next year?

Over the next year, I want to produce a chap-book style illustrated pamphlet of my poetry - or maybe two. The illustrations are going to be ink drawings. I have the poems all ready! Also, I’d like to meet someone and collaborate with them on a multilingual poetry video - any languages. Intellectually, I’m interested in machine translation, AI, how people use translation apps… And also minority languages and their importance to the communities that speak them, hence my Gaelic Tree Alphabet poster, where each letter is the name of a tree.

Tell us a little bit about the work of an artist or arts organisation/ collective that you find inspiring

As regards living artists, I love the work of Barbara Walker. Her drawing skills are second to none and her work is narrative, all about people. More specifically, it is about how Black people have been airbrushed out of British and colonial history, which is such an important topic today and how racist discrimination, brutality and prejudice continue to affect lives now. To be able to capture something about the individual AND to say something important about the time we live in and how history has shaped it seems to me to be an important function of art. So, generally, I admire narrative art and portraits. A great artist like Walker captures individuals and their so-important social context. Another  inspiration for me is William Blake, how he put words and images together. Also, he carried on regardless, being outspoken in his life and art, even though he didn’t make much money and wasn’t popular in his lifetime.

Describe the last time you felt inspired

As for inspiration, I think we are so lucky to have the Ashmolean on our doorstep. I sometimes go there to sketch and have just finished a drawing of the cast of the Laocoön group. I’ve added the bright colours because that’s how classical sculpture was originally.

What is your opinion of the current art scene in Oxford?

As regards public art, there are some brilliant murals in Oxford, for example, those by Alex Singleton. On the downside though, the statue of Cecil Rhodes is STILL there at University College, in spite of the protests. There are also some great community projects, for example, Making Space Safe for refugees and asylum seekers at Modern Art Oxford and Shadowlight Artists, the collective of artists with learning disabilities based at Film Oxford - but excellent projects like this often struggle with insecure funding. The local level has lots happening, too. I’m a member of New Hinksey Arts and exhibit there and try and support it in any way I can. But, I would echo what my predecessor as Featured Artist said, that the arts scene in Oxford, like so much of life, is adversely affected by the inequalities of wealth and opportunity in our city.

How do you feel the arts benefit society?

I feel the arts benefit society when everyone feels empowered to participate and enjoy them. To quote Picasso: ‘Every child is an artist. The problem is, how to remain an artist once they grow up’.

You can find me @karimabrooke and @karimabrookepaintings on Instagram. My YouTube videos are at #WeSpeakPoetry and ‘Food for Joy: Marcus Rashford Speaks Truth to Power’