Mike Wolanin | The Republic Guests look at an abstract painting by artist Lloyd Brooks fothe Saarinen alpahbet reception for an exhibit by Brooks and author Skip Berry at the Columbus Area Visitors Center in Columbus, Ind., Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025. The exhibit titled Poetics of Space - Living with Modernism features paintings by Brooks of modernist architecture around Columbus as well as abstract paintings of the modernist movement and poems by Berry.
The works of Indiana artist Lloyd Brooks and Indiana poet Skip Berry combine in a new exhibit showcasing modernism in Columbus.
The exhibit, titled “Poetics of Space – Living with Modernism,” opened at the Columbus Visitors Center’s Gallery 506 in September, and it will be available to view until Dec. 4. The center is located at 506 Fifth St. and is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays.
An Indianapolis artist, Brooks lived in Columbus for 10 years working as the program chair of the Art and Design Department at Ivy Tech. He moved back to Indianapolis in 2019 and now operates a gallery with his wife Carol Faenzi.
The exhibit was in the works for around 15 months following Brooks approaching Columbus Visitors Center Executive Director Misty Weisensteiner about a modernist art gallery, as he said he has had the concept of a modernism show for a while. He began developing the studies for it last summer.
About a year ago, he read French author Gaston Bachelard’s 1958 book “The Poetics of Space,” which is about the intimacy of spaces. The title served as part of the inspiration behind the exhibit, as it is how he felt about the modernism of Columbus. He said he wanted to celebrate modernism through his experiences of living in Columbus, where he was surrounded by architecture designed by some of the 20th century’s greatest designers.
“(The exhibit) brought together my love of geometry and fine art, the joy of sacred geometry and its marriage with symmetry, asymmetry and other design principles throughout the modernist spaces of Columbus,” Brooks said at the exhibit’s reception last Tuesday.
Brooks developed about 10 paintings for the exhibit, many depicting familiar locations around Columbus such as First Christian Church, St. Peter’s Lutheran Church and the Crump Theater. As the series of paintings continue, they become more abstract while still retaining icons of Columbus such as the Large Arch. The series showcases a style that Brooks calls “crimson impressions,” which incorporates math and geometry and fine art.
“And I ended up calling it that because it’s a shortened version of impressionism but all the canvases are tinted red and I let a little bit of that red come through to add some spark to the image,” Brooks said. “So that was one thing I committed myself to doing was tinting all the canvases red and then working on top of that to see what would happen.”
All of these works were developed for this exhibit aside from one, a piece titled “Umbrella Pines of the Future” that he created in 2022 from a dream he had. Brooks said that piece served as the genesis behind the exhibit and inspired him to do a modernist exhibit.
As Brooks continued to develop these works, he brought on Skip Berry, a former visual arts writer with the Indianapolis Star, the author of over a dozen books and someone he has known for 25 years. Brooks said he took inspiration from “The Poetics of Space” title again in asking Berry to come on board and write poetry to go along with the paintings. Though they have collaborated on projects before, this was their first fine arts project together.
“So I was really thrilled that he was willing to undertake working with me on collaborating on developing the idea for the show and I just really thought adding words and poetry to the imagery added a nice layer to the exhibit that it became even more experiential…,” Brooks said.
Berry said he was brought onto the project about six months ago and once he was brought onboard, Brooks left him to his own devices. He wrote about 12 poems for the exhibit and four were selected. He said Brooks would send him sketches of the paintings or partially completed paintings so he could see how Brooks was playing out his part of the project’s thematic foundation.
That guided him in what he wanted to write about, but he said the majority of these poems do not respond specifically to the paintings. Only one of these poems, “Red,” responded specifically to Brooks’ crimson impressions style.
“(The collaboration) went very, very well,” Berry said. “We’ve known each other for so long that working together, it was a pretty seamless process.”
“From the standpoint of this particular exhibition, I hope people come away with this sense of, ‘this is what’s possible when two artists coming from different media collaborate on a theme,’” Berry said. “And ask themselves what more can be done if other artists are collaborating.”
