Statement

Ghost-printed plants and netting, botanical inks—alive—shifting over time, wet-on-wet paintings dissolving edges, sewing as repair and rupture. Through materiality and mark-making, my layered work asks the viewer to immerse themselves in questions about our spiritual, historical, socio-political, and ecological relationship to land. My interdisciplinary fieldwork, research, and material explorations make visible and deconstruct the lineage of colonial thinking that positions us as “owners” of the land. By engaging the senses and inviting in more-than-human collaborators, I explore the space between borders and belonging.

In my public practice, I gather people in my community garden plot to collectively learn from each other and our environs. Engaging fences and gardens, tools at the heart of land dispossession in New England, I explore the possibility of shifting ideology.

In the studio, my current body of work invites the red amaranth plant to help make sense of the time we live in. Often considered a weed, red amaranth came to me as a volunteer in my garden, from an unknown source, but full of lessons about resilience. Scientists now know that plants can do incredible things: They hear, communicate, and even remember. But do plants have consciousness, do they have sentience? Lines made with amaranth, indigo, or sulfur cosmos behave differently. I am humbled by the ink’s willingness or reluctance to be controlled—the way it touches the paper, its density. De-centering myself, I watch and learn from my collaborator. Combined with monotypes of garden fencing, the tools of control, the works are stitched into full-body offerings, shrouds for the deceased. My practice holds the grief and complicity of watching violent tragedies—brought on by land disputes—from afar, while also considering the possibility of regeneration and renewal.

Bio

Brooke Toczylowski (b. 1981, Pittsfield, Massachusetts), grew up in New England and as an adult has lived in Venezuela, Guatemala, New York City, and Oakland, California. She currently resides on Sicaog and Wangunk land in central Connecticut. She has been awarded two Artist Respond grants from the Connecticut Office of the Arts and has participated in artist residencies at the Kala Art Institute, Walkaway House, Millay Arts, In Cahoots, Loomis Chaffee, and more. Among others, her work has been shown at Five Points Gallery, Installation Space, Gallery RAG, Anonymous Society Gallery, the Cambridge Art Association. Toczylowski earned her BA in Studio Art and American Studies from Williams College and recently completed her Masters of Fine Arts at Clark University; her thesis show took place at MASS MoCA in January, 2025.

brooketoczylowski.com