Among the first works of art that Andy and I bought together were a trio of thumb-sized (various thumb sizes) graphite-under/on-resin images of parts of the Los Angeles freeways against the palm trees. Each one is framed in cut copper pipe. They are like peep holes into another world, at first idyllic because of the trees. But the haziness of the resin bespeaks of a manmade reality, a landscape both smoggy and striped by cars and concrete.
As we would come to know more and more over the years, the creator of those peep hole's, Brooks Salzwedel, has a relationship with the natural and manmade realities of our world that is both tenuous and reverential. The artist, who lives near us in Silver Lake, conjures his fragile, unearthly images by using graphite on layers of mylar, then cast in resin.
Not long after that first acquisition, when we first opened A+R, Brooks began crafting belt buckles, using much of the same labor-intensive techniques he uses in his fine art, yet with duplications of his images. Several collections of his buckles, all best-sellers, have followed. As his fine art has taken off at galleries from here to the UK, much of it selling out on opening night, Brooks has once again come up with a more accessible alternative: signed, limited-edition giclées, printed on 100% rag, matte, heavy-weight watercolor paper that is both archival and acid free. And once again, we're thrilled to be among the first wave of early adopters and champions of Brooks and is magical work.
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