The Fruit of the Spirit

Moe Brooker created this painting for the lobby of the William J. Green, Jr. Federal Building in Philadelphia, the artist’s hometown.  Brooker described his concept for the artwork as “one of joy” and as an “invitation that celebrates the architectural space and adds warmth to it.” [1]

Brooker’s painting joins an earlier artwork that was commissioned for the same lobby, Celebration (1977) by Charles Searles, Brooker’s friend and fellow graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.  Although Brooker’s work is abstract, its vibrant palette echoes that of Searles’s earlier painting.

Brooker’s painting, The Fruit of the Spirit, is a bold arrangement of color, form, and line.  Over large fields of color, Brooker layered smaller and loosely brushed areas of paint, chalky white lines and marks, and confetti-like patterns.  These dynamic forms are framed by several areas of bold stripes and checkerboard grids.  Brooker said that, for him, the checkerboard “always represents options, possibilities, and what could happen.” [2]

About his overall approach to painting, Brooker wrote:

“As an artist, new information and experiences are vital to my work.  The shifting and selection of those bits and pieces of information that are the most useful spark and enlighten my creative energies.  The need to know compels further exploration in the search for new ways of making ‘visible.’  The result of this pursuit hopefully is continual growth and further development.  Making visible, for me, is about the asking of questions.  Questions cause search, leading to discovery, resulting in invention.  This is a process that invites the discovery of new ways of realizing one’s own sensibility and voice.  The kind of information I need as an artist is the result of constant search.  The information that I use becomes that vehicle that best enables and encourages discovery, invention and the process of ‘making visible.’ ” [3]

Brooker compared his working method to that of a composer, and described the impact that certain jazz and classical musicians—such as John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and Dmitri Shostakovich—had on his painting process.  Brooker said that his approach to abstraction also was shaped by the works of two titans of twentieth-century painting: Wassily Kandinsky’s seminal writings on color theory, and Arshile Gorky’s exploration of line and the figure-ground relationship.

The title of this painting, The Fruit of the Spirit, provides insights into Brooker’s motivations as an artist over his long and prolific career.  He said: “I have enormous belief in the human spirit and in people, regardless of what the world is like right now.  I want to make people smile, I want to make people laugh, and I want to introduce to people their own sense of spirituality, because that’s what keeps us going.  That’s what keeps me making art.” [4]

Notes:

1.  Moe Brooker, GSA Design Concept narrative, December 7, 2017.

2.  MOE BROOKER, YouTube video, 2:43, PCC ART, May 28, 2019, https://youtu.be/05R3goz_HLo?t=79.

3.  Moe Brooker, Moe Brooker: Recent Drawings (New York: June Kelly Gallery, 2021).

4.  Exploring the Undiscovered Country, Brooker, Dickerson, & Soffer at the Delaware Art Museum, YouTube video, 22:52, John Thornton, February 23, 2018, https://youtu.be/wbhhPOaL_1s?t=1127.