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Featured Muralist: Anthony Brooks - Video and Tan building, Bainbridge
The following is the fifth of an eight-part series on the artists who will be painting the seven murals throughout Putnam County as part of the Putnam County Mural Festival. Set for Sept. 7-21, the festival will culminate with a celebration in Greencastle on Saturday, Sept. 21.
Up next is native Hoosier artist Anthony Brooks.
Anthony Brooks is a visual artist based between Northwest Indiana and Berlin, Germany. Working mainly in public art and illustration, he has more than 60 murals in 14 countries, including the United States, Denmark, Germany, Spain and much of Eastern Europe.
Brooks will be painting a mural on the old Video and Tan building at Main and Washington streets in Bainbridge.
Q: Why did you want to create a mural in Putnam County?
A: There are rarely mural opportunities in Indiana and given the opportunity, I like to prioritize projects in my home state over other locations. As for Putnam County itself, I have family that live nearby and have been following the Putnam County Mural Project for years. It just seemed natural to want to take part in it.
Q: What excites you about the specific location of your mural?
A: The history of the location, mainly. The wall itself offers some cool possibilities from a design sense and I love having a personal reason to engage with and learn about a place. This mural has definitely facilitated that.
Q: How do you hope people will engage with your art?
A: Perhaps not the answer that you’re looking for, but I don’t have a specific hope in terms of how they engage. Everyone experiences life differently, and thus, their relationship with art differs vastly. I do what I can to make something that I think will connect in some way and beyond that, I generally like to sit back and see how others perceive my work.
Q: How did you get into mural creation? How long have you been doing it?
A: A mixture of illegally painting walls and a few friends asking me to paint some of my drawings on their wall. It just kind of took off from there. I’ve been doing it in the current format for 8 years.
Q: What inspires your art?
A: Similar to the question of how I hope people will engage, I think the answer to this question changes with every breath. Experiences with other people, observations, sights, smells, sounds, memories, nostalgia, beliefs, etc. It varies widely depending on the format of my art, the location, the scale, etc.
Q: What’s your next project?
A: I have several more things in the works for this year, though I would rather wait to announce them until everything is finalized!