Holly Brooks

Holly Brooks was born in Boston, Massachusetts is 1955. She grew up in Weston, Massachusetts and now resides in Portland, Maine. Her family has summered on Islesford for many generations.

Though she never obtained a degree in art, Brooks has always found painting and drawing to be an important part of her life. She spent ten years in the field of landscape architecture. After an eye opening trip to Todos Santos, Mexico, she realized that art would become a focus in her life and began painting as a full time profession in 1999.

In the winter she paints in the southwest and Mexico, while during the rest of the year Maine is her primary inspiration. Her choices of mediums are usually watercolor, acrylic, and collage. The appeal of watercolor is its translucent and unpredictable nature for surprise. Acrylic allows for quick layering and collage brings in a new dimension for abstraction. Her principles with painting are to portray the subject matter with a spontaneity and succinctness while focusing on color relationships and composition. She pursues the perfection of these principles while always allowing an open door for discovery to avoid assembly line repetition.