fullflood
I love painting. I love the way it is so suggestive of the world and yet is something else. I love
the light it can conjure, the energy and sense of touch it conveys. I love the sense of skin in an oil
painting. It is tactile, messy, complex, mysterious…a wonderful antidote to disembodied
contemporary life.
Moving through a series I work on more than one painting at a time. The paintings evolve slowly
and intuitively. I have a starting point, perhaps a memory of a certain quality of light, and then
go where it leads me. I like to make the marks legible and discreet, to give the viewer a sense of
process, of actions, almost the way a musician uses an instrument to build a rhythmic foundation.
The process moves towards a certain unity, ideally a sense of inevitability.
I’m looking for emotional range, for allusions to the world and human experience. I welcome
metaphor. The reductive, minimalist attitude of the 1970s was the context in which I was
educated but, as Robert Irwin says, “Restriction can be a discipline to break habits, but it need
not be a final state and it’s no state of grace.” Making paintings that are colorful, energetic,
emotional, that freely refer to landscape and the body might seem almost “transgressive” now,
but I have developed a sense of freedom and fearlessness, and a real sense of urgency about
doing the work.
The title fullflood refers to a poem by Denise Levertov in which a friend urges her to work well
as her “river is in full flood”. Metaphors. My belief is that metaphor is essential, that often the
most obscure or muted work is coded in some way. The core human realities, presence or
absence, life and death, grief and joy, physicality, sexuality—we look for echoes of our
experience in the world around us. Water, as a fundamental element, holds endless possibilities.
The core of the work is in quietude. I believe that a painting can redirect our attention, can create
a sense of presence in the world. Here, of course, is the link to Lucretius, and his poetic treatise
On the Nature of Things. That sense of energetic unity is a touchstone for a more grounded
reality, of connection and consolation. I approach painting as a lover of the world. I ultimately
feel it’s a more powerful stance than polemic—engaging the imagination, memory, and senses
helps us to value what we have. And of course, that is what is essential now.
Donna Brookman
b. 1949
EDUCATION
MFA, Painting, San Francisco Art Institute
BA, Art, University of California, Berkeley
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2013
fullflood Paintings, Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA
2010
Ragini Paintings, Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA
Ragini Paintings and Works on Paper, 455 Market Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2005
Metamorphosis, 5+5 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
1993
Donna Brookman/Mary King/Chikako Okada, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artists’ Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1991
New Works, Spectrum Gallery, San Francisco, CA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026
Contemporary Women of Abstraction, Paul Thiebaud Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2025
Twenty-Five Treasures, Paul Thiebaud Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2018
Time & Place: Human Impact and our Changing Environment, Kim Anno, Donna Brookman, Lewis de Soto, Andrew Moore. Museums of Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, CA
Way Bay, and Way Bay 2, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA
2017
About Abstraction: Bay Area Women Painters, Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA
2015
The Art of the Book, Seager-Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA
2014
Open Seas, Kala Gallery, Berkeley, CA
2013
Codex Book Fair, Richmond, CA, Exhibitor: Donna Seager Gallery
2012
Gender Specific: Take it or Leave It, Smith Anderson Editions, Palo Alto, CA
2011
Abstract Visions: Selections by Peter Selz, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
2010
The Art of the Book, Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA
2005
Thirty Something: Three Decades of Innovative Work from the Kala Institute, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artists’ Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2004
The Essence of Nature, Paintings by Jennifer Bain, Eva Bovenzi, Gary Brewer, Donna Brookman and Tara Cooper, Bedford Gallery, Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek, CA
Works on/ Works of Paper, Snyderman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2003
Earthly Matters, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artists Gallery at Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA
Kala in Uzbekistan, Center for Modern Art, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Grabados sin Fronteras, Mission Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA
La Estamperia/ Kala Exchange exhibit, Quito, Ecuador
2002
Kala in Belarus, National Museum of Belarus/Kala Exchange Exhibit, Minsk, Belarus
Solos: The Contemporary Monoprint, Kala Institute, Berkeley, CA
1997
Women in Abstraction, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Artists Gallery at Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA
Raindance:New Paintings for the Spring, Terrain Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1994
20th Anniversary Kala Institute Exhibition, Butterfield & Butterfield Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1986
Kala Institute/Trace Exchange Exhibition, Foyer International d’Accueil de Paris, France
1983
Three-person show of monotypes, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
1981
Selected Gallery Artists: Works on Paper, Tom Luttrell Gallery, San Francisco, CA
PUBLICATIONS
Riverrun, poetry by Anne Barrows, drawings by Donna Brookman, Gray Heron Press, Berkeley, CA 2013
Cover image for Swimming in the Rain, poems by Chana Bloch, Autumn House Press, 2015
Margo, unique artist’s book, Gray Heron Press, Berkeley. CA 2010
Metamorphosis, Gray Heron Press, Berkeley, 2005
Illustrations for Americas Review, Spring 2003, No. 13, Berkeley, CA
Illustrations for Daughter (poetry), Janine Canaan, Emily Dickinson Press, 1981
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Donna Brookman: Artist of Evolutions, Peter Dale Scott, Palace of Memory catalog, Gray Heron Press, 2017
Memory and Symmetry, Dawn McGuire, Palace of Memory catalog, Gray Heron Press, 2017
“Donna Brookman: Aorist and fullflood”, by Stephen Greenblatt, fullflood catalog, Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA 2013
“Donna Brookman’s Organic Abstractions”, Peter Selz, Ragini Paintings catalog, Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA 2010
“Bill Bush: Chaos and Frenzy. Fantasy and Whimsy: This Artweek.LA” (January 7, 2013). Huffington Post Arts and Culture, January 10, 2013
“Donna Brookman: Fullflood”, Bill Bush. Artweek LA-Art Here Now, January 7, 2013
“Nature’s Essences” by Amy Berk, Art Contemporaries, vol. 1 no. 2, June 2004
Casey Fitzsimons, ‘Women in Abstraction’ at SFMOMA Rental Gallery, Artweek, December 1997
CATALOGUES
Time & Place: Human Impact and our Changing Environment,
Museums of Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, CA 2018
About Abstraction: Bay Area Women Painters, Bedford Gallery at Lesher Center, Walnut Creek, CA 2017
Palace of Memory, Gray Heron Press, 2017
Book/Art/Object 2, Codex Foundation, Berkeley, CA 2013
fullflood Paintings. Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA 2013
Ragini Paintings. Thomas Paul Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA, 2010
Prints without Borders, Centro Cultural Metropolitano, Quito, Equador, exhibition catalogue, 2003.
KALA in Uzbekistan, Embassy of the United States, exhibition catalogue, November 2003.
KALA in Belarus, National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus, and Embassy of the United States, exhibition catalogue, 2002.
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Berkeley Art Museum
UC Bancroft Library
Kala Institute
Museum of Sonoma County
Private and Corporate collections
