Night Gallery 

Troy Brooks created "Night Gallery," which captures a mood of feminine mystique and alienation. Brooks is working in our contemporary moment, so his paintings, rooted in a specific historical and cultural context, also point toward our current conditions. His paintings often feature women in a mid-century style, but with an exaggerated, almost alien beauty. The woman in "Night Gallery" evokes the glamour of classic Hollywood, yet there is an unsettling stillness in her gaze, a sense of isolation against the backdrop of a glittering cityscape. The influence of classic cinema and fashion photography is palpable. Brooks uses those forms, but creates, as he says, a kind of "hyper-femininity" that both celebrates and critiques traditional representations of women. He asks us to consider the psychological dimensions of his subjects, caught between the allure and the burden of idealized beauty. Brooks is interested in more than just surface appearances; he invites us to look deeper, to find the complex, often contradictory emotions that lie beneath.