There is a facility to Brookes work that uses all the formal techniques of painting and composition without the hassle or struggle that comes with developing a personal language. It’s clear from the beginning he has a style, a “look” but style is not painting and can lead quickly to monotony and repetition. Painting must have a language of its own; it’s not meant to disappear or to be consumed rapidly, it is meant to be looked at, studied, and contemplated. Most of Brookes work lacks depth and meaning, it sits on the surface of the canvas immutable and superficial. At times, its poor paint handling and unchanging color scheme of fluorescent pinks, lime green and sky blue can lead to an opaque mess. The work entitled “Tiger, Tiger” is a clear example of this. For the most part though, his unequivocal popularity has nothing to do with the artwork he produces and everything to do with how its been marketed. It’s good but not good enough, at least by any criteria that exist outside of where it comes from and is supported. Where his style comes from is from the street and board culture, but the gritty urban street art that was produced “back in the day” has gotten its toenails manicured and been replaced by a whole new generation of impresarios. You have to ask yourself how this can be; the answer is not entirely obvious.

Brookes success is directly linked to the ubiquitous and commercially driven popularity street art and its derivatives has garnered over the years. It can be seen anywhere from LA to Miami, South America, Europe and beyond. Its MTV art star status (in some cases deserved) has nothing more to do with its origins and the practitioners who still risk jail time and huge fines to get their work out into the public domain. It is a phenomenon that has successfully competed against some of the art world’s best painter’s efforts for money and fame, hampered as they still are, by a traditional art gallery system of recognition and sales. And while street artists and their ilk - Brookes included - have enjoyed and even profited from the direct fruit of their labor, the mileu continues to produce a slew of very and not-so-very talented artists who are no longer concerned with the inequitable conditions found in most commercial galleries. Instead, they have crossed over into mainstream commercial outlets (clothing for example) or into exhibition venues designed uniquely for the marketing of their brands. The result has been a gold rush of wealth and recognition for both the street artist and enterprise. The pendulum has started to swing back, supply and demand has kicked in and taken hold, making for some strange bedfellows as galleries seek fortune and street artists seek credibility.

When I was growing up in Santa Cruz during the 1970’s, the Board Culture Industry (surf, skate, ski / snowboard) was not the multi-million dollar industry it is today. The “culture” of boarding and what it meant – individual freedom, athleticism, speed, beauty, a ballet on wheels – was unblemished by advertising dollars and commercial interests. Talk to any rider today, and they will tell you that their art form has nothing to do with what’s featured in the pages of some glossy fashion magazine. In short, what is happening today is called branding. Tiger Woods does it and so does Tony Hawk. The word “industry” which has been added to the board culture paradigm, is used to distinguish between the culture and the commercial derivatives –clothing, art, and boarding equipment for example - that has sucked up so many artists and wannabe’s in its wake. My only concern as a young teenager back then was what to wear - Hang Ten or O’Neill – there was nothing else to choose from. The market has since then literally exploded.

The blending of board culture with visual artists has produced a cool aesthetic that is a perfect storm of good fortune, youth consumerism, social networking, and a fledgling public intellect. It is a mainstream pop aesthetic that has attained an incredible and formidable base of energy and ideas – thanks to many street and graffiti artists – who have revolutionized the culture they grew up in and manufactured it into a viable and sustainable ecosystem. I can’t begin to tell you the number of street artists that have gone from tagging concrete to becoming artistic directors for such major labels as Billabong, Rossignol and countless others. Many of these companies and even galleries were startups comprising more labor and talent than money. As the notoriety of an athlete’s career grew, so did the exposure of the artist’s designs by virtue of the logos on the skis they were wearing. Branding a product became an aesthetic and lucrative choice. Also helping this industry to grow were professional surfers or skateboarders who had an intimate knowledge of what their potential clients would want or buy, and were scouted as consultants and product designers.

Kelsey Brookes is just one artist out of a hundred other reputable artists intimately involved in this scene. One look at Brookes resume and you’ll quickly realize he’s only been showing since 2005, but where and with who, has made all the difference in the world. And while this is admirable, it is destined to be short lived, his sustainability as an artist can only be maintained as a product or as a fine artist with a language uniquely his own. Style does not foster vision or longevity, it guarantees recognition, fulfills the requirements of branding, but does not make one an artist. Street culture’s popularity does not mean it has discerning taste, what it does mean is it takes all newcomers without prejudice.

The reason Brookes finds himself in an upscale gallery in La Jolla has everything to do with the boundaries of lowbrow (street culture) and highbrow (fine art) worlds colliding, being hammered-out, and spit-shined by plenty of his predecessors. Kelsey Brookes owes an immense if not incalculable debt to old school artists the likes of Keith Haring, Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, Hervé Di Rosa, Blek le Rat et al. even Rauschenberg’s earlier silk-screened works, galleries like Fashion Moda, art collectives like the Beautiful Losers, hip-hop, street artists, the DIY movement, Barry McGee, Ryan McGinness, and even contemporary painters like John Currin and Lisa Yuskavage for getting him there. This is not to denigrate the works of Brookes but to simply point out that the legacy has already been established. It’s easier to become an artist today in this field by mimicking so much of what is out there. It also helps to have a few household names like Banksy and Shepard Fairey leading the way. No painter has ever been guaranteed a spot in the art world’s hierarchy simply because De Kooning made it as a painter. However, had he been a skateboarder, we’d all have a larger appreciation for Abstract Expressionism.

I love street art, always have, what I don’t love is that it ends up in galleries trying to be something more than it is. The dilemma Brookes poses for us all is that he has been tossed into a hellish ring of art historical proportions and traditions (whether he belongs there or not is another debate) where the work appears to have all the accoutrements of painting when it actuality doesn’t. The painting’s appeal is too literal as opposed to contextual, simplistic as opposed to technical, visceral as opposed to poised and reflective, inspired yes, but one dimensional in its readability. Like the “Good Witch of the North” though, galleries have this uncanny ability to turn pumpkins into horse-drawn carriages, water into wine, and art into riches regardless of the quality.

The issue of quality shouldn’t be forgotten when looking at street art or understanding its ambitions. Its lightning-rod aesthetic is a major key to its success. Couple this with a fierce independence and leader in the branding and marketing of sporting equipment and clothing means not only is it a formidable foe, it also needs constant refueling of young and ambitious talent to keep it going. In the meantime, there has been no attempt to establish any critical discourse or objectivity on whether or not the work being produced is any good at all. That is, from a fine art perspective. I know of no art critics in the field of board culture and street art; this is because it is a self-regulating society where newcomers are looked down upon and art star players like Banksy are heralded as Kings – there is no middle ground. The glut of imagery produced in this self-efficient network overrides any instinct to filter or classify its quality or regulate its quantity. There is far too much of it to even try.

The problem is it’s all starting to look the same because there have been no recent innovations in its technique, method of production or exposure. To quote the Target store motto, it’s “fast, friendly and fun.” A second issue which may not appear to be a problem for some, is like Brookes, his colleagues make work that is so incredibly rich in the detail, surface, pattern, and graphic seduction, it’s almost impossible not to like it. A lot like looking at a hyper-realist painting and forgetting what the subject was about. But put this same work in a gallery and you inevitably end up leaving the viewer impressed, confused or indifferent. It is this indifference to a work’s presence and absence of content (because we know it wasn’t meant to last) is where we find the work’s true appeal. It’s temporary and fresh. It’s meant for a T-shirt and not prosperity. This is OK but don’t call it painting.

The point is today’s internet savvy artist, without leaving the comfort of the living room, can glean a rich source of imagery from anywhere. Whether it’s Hindu, Mexican, Chinese or Aboriginal it doesn’t matter. But taking and appropriating what is essentially a culture’s symbolism, even as stereotypical as it can be, and turning into a collage of signs, colors, and decorative elements such as Brookes has done, can reduce that culture down to a visual sound byte and its most basic form. Culture then becomes a “found object” one that is already loaded with a meaning and history which actually alleviates the artist from any responsibility of replacing the appropriated content with his own. It becomes a stand-in, a substitute for higher meaning and understanding. The power of a work of art that has been blended into a wild mix of cultures and sub-cultures lays not so much in the strength of the artist’s technical ability and strong graphic sense to pull it all together, but in the culture’s presence. To appropriate a culture’s identity is to gut it like a trout – from the anus to the gills – leaving it soulless and heartless.

And while this is nothing new, Christopher Knight points out that artists have been appropriating imagery for hundreds of years, they have however, turned that appropriation into a personal language that progresses beyond the original source. The work Brookes does looks cool but has no history. I believe Brookes is purely interested in the formal graphic quality of the work and non-narrative history of what happens, evolves, and changes when his techniques are applied to canvas. The reading and understanding of the work by the viewer is almost guaranteed (whether this is the case or not) by the recognizable and cultural motifs used to construct the work. It doesn’t really matter if you can “read” all the words and phrases Brookes uses as an ossature for the animal or human forms he’s painting, as long as it references something. Or as the artist put it succinctly in an interview with Seth Combs and CityBeat (speaking on the range of topics his work covers), “I just do it. And then, once I stop, I can read back into the meaning of it.” Exactly, it’s unimportant; the works are empty shells to be filled with ideas and content.

Once again, I adore street art, graffiti and any combination thereof, but I can like it for completely different reasons than I like an oil painting by David, Ingres or Phillip Guston. They’re not the same beast; I don’t know how to explain it any other way. They serve different aesthetics and tastes, and for the most part, should be taken out of the realm of fine art. And not because I said so or that it can never become - let me be clear on this - but because what Brookes does can’t right now, the work has not aged or matured enough to rank alongside the hall-of-famers in the Pantheon. It doesn’t make it bad, it just means you have to look at it with a different set of eyes.

There is as there always are, exceptions to my hard & fast rules for art criticism. This too is the nature of the beast. That exception is a work entitled “The Storm”. I believe it is one of the strongest works in the show, full of unbridled energy if you will, and contains a glimpse of where and how Brookes could push the work further. The image reminds me of a horse being “electrocuted” – like when a cartoon character sticks its finger in a light socket and you see their skeleton light-up. It is much stronger than “Feast” with all of its Mandala-esque busyness and far more interesting than the soft-porn ridiculousness of “The Red Queen”. Part of The Storm’s success is its scale and the balance between the lettering used and the imagery of the full scale horse that inhabits the entire canvas. There is far less doodling and coloring going on and the mark-making appears to be stronger, looser, and much more confident. It effuses an energy and freedom unlike its companions in the rest of the show. This gives me some hope. In the end, Brookes has come a long way in a short period of time given the notoriety and company he’s kept in a domain where success is measured in album covers and magazine spreads and not in decades that it takes to become a true painter. He’ll likely get there; it’s just a matter of time.