Inside the Studio

Brooke on 'Troposphere'

Artist Brooke Holm in her studio laying out different aerial photographs on a wooden table.

Shot from a small plane over South Australia, Brooke Holm's photographs for Grounded present painterly interpretations of the seemingly horizonless desert, flecked with iridescent orange and coral tones.

A small red and white plane in a remote area.

The propeller of a small red and white plane.

Artist Brooke Holm photographing the sky from the door of a flying plane.

Titled Troposphere, Brooke's newest body of work was shot from a small plane situated below the stratosphere, in the lowest layer of the atmosphere about 3,000 feet from the Earth’s surface. The photographs present painterly interpretations of the seemingly horizonless landscape, flecked with iridescent orange and coral tones from the ephemeral salt lakes of the South Australian desert. These aerial images of isolated basins lack a fixed grounding element and have an abstract sense of scale. This visual ambiguity challenges us to navigate a shifting perspective where the familiar becomes alien - a sentiment that is echoed by the uncertain and destabilizing nature of climate change we are now experiencing globally.

The troposphere is the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere, the space from the ground up to the sky ending just below the stratosphere. In this body of work, there is a disorientation experienced through the horizonless landscape, as though we are in free fall. This feeling was extra palpable for me as I experienced an episode of heat stroke while making this work from a small plane, altering my consciousness.
Brooke Holm

The pastel pink sky from the window of a small plane.

Aerial view from a small plane over the landscape of South Australia, as captured by photographer Brooke Holm.

Artist Brooke Holm sitting in the cockpit over a small plane over South Australia.

With closer inspection, small interventions on the landscape come into focus - animal tracks and other recognizable artifacts become glyphs that connect us to the context of the image, orienting ourselves within the photograph’s altered perspective. Deserts symbolize both resilience and fragility; the environments that Brooke captures sustain life under extreme conditions, embodying the passage of time, and also mirroring the landscapes of other planets in our solar system. Her photographs invite reflection on these qualities, positioning deserts as powerful allegories for the profound transformations taking place on Earth.

The textural surface of the landscape offers a sense of grounding as luminescent colors evoke those of a sunrise, inviting a gaze that is contemplative instead of extractive. With this gaze, and throughout the images, a way in can be found, led by animal footprints across the crusty endorheic basins of the desert, connecting life to existence, helping us find gravity within altered perspectives.
Brooke Holm