Dallas artist Joey Brock has never played by the rules. Self-taught, he began his practice as a side hustle 35 years ago, working late nights after his day job in the tech industry. Initially painting abstracts, he discovered he had a “good strong eye,” and soon found himself becoming more experimental with ideas and materials.
“I just wanted work that had a deeper meaning with stories and dialogue. I did a residency in New York in 2018 and had to talk about the work, which was terrifying to me. But my mentor was really impressed and said, ‘Joey, are you going to keep making fluff work or do something with some seriousness to it?'”
The answer came in his next series, where he interviewed 70 subjects about discrimination. The resulting videos and stills led him to realize that everyone has a story, one he could capture by stitching and weaving photographs printed on Mylar with other textural materials.
Although Brock doesn’t consider himself a photographer, his portraits became “an integral part of holding everything together,” resembling a glitch in the matrix while recalling the handcrafted details of the quilts he grew up with on a remote Texas farm.
Brock looks for subjects in the wild who are “living their authentic selves, even if they struggle with it.” These connections led Brock to open a space where he can exhibit his portraits alongside pieces from colleagues like Liz King, with whom he is working on a “cheeky” video series entitled Squirrel and Pearl.
The artist (who is also represented by Bowie House in Fort Worth) plans for his Studio/Gallery to mount four shows a year, and the many interesting faces he’s captured over the years should help solidify the space’s “great vibes.”
“I want to do pop-ups with not only my work, but artists and friends, and build a community,” he says. “My opening party was very diverse with races, ages and sexual orientations, and that’s what I love — just an approachable, authentic, loving good vibe. I let it happen naturally.”