Gallery 3

Brooke Chanelle Laybourne - Second Look

30 September - 11 October 2026

please note last day of exhibition ends on 11 October at 3pm

Opening night

2 October | 6 - 8 pm

Gallery Hours:
Wednesday – Sunday: 10 am – 5 pm

Artist Statement

Brooke Chanelle Laybourne is a Melbourne-based visual artist whose practice explores memory, identity, perception and human connection through portraiture and symbolic imagery.

her exhibition, Second Look, is grounded in the idea that the way something is seen can change the longer it is observed. A first look may reveal what is immediately visible, while a second is shaped by memory, emotion and lived experience. Through this process, something familiar can begin to hold an entirely different meaning.

Working primarily with acrylic and mixed media, Brooke uses abstraction, layering, distortion, repetition, colour shifts and inversion to explore what exists beneath the surface of an image. Faces and figures become a way of examining the experiences people carry with them — the parts of a person, relationship or moment that cannot always be understood at first glance.

Much of Brooke’s work begins with experiences that are deeply personal, including love, birth, connection, grief and different versions of the self. Rather than presenting these experiences as fixed narratives, she allows them to be fragmented and reinterpreted, creating space for the viewer to bring their own memories and associations to the work.

Her parallel practice as a tattoo artist has further shaped her understanding of portraiture, composition and the relationship between imagery, memory and personal symbolism. Across both practices, she is drawn to the ways people attach meaning to images and how that meaning can evolve over time.

Through Second Look,, Brooke invites the viewer to stay with an image a little longer — to move beyond what is immediately recognisable and consider what may exist underneath. In doing so, the familiar becomes less fixed, revealing the emotional complexity, memory and experience that may have been there all along.

Artist Bio

Brooke Chanelle is a Melbourne based visual artist, her practice centers on contemporary portraiture. Exploring memory, identity, perception and human connection. She completed a Diploma in Visual Arts at RIMT University in 2019 and works primarily across acrylic painting and mixed media, incorporating obstruction, laid imagery, distortion and color manipulation throughout her practice.

Alongside her visual art practice, Brooke has worked professionally within the tattoo industry since 2019. Her experience as a tattoo artist has influenced her approach to portraiture, composition and detail, while strengthening her interest in both permanence, memory and personal symbolism.

Brooke has exhibited her work across a number of group exhibitions at independent projects in Melbourne, with her practice continuing to evolve a crossbars fine on tattooing.