Over the past two years, I have been less present. During that time, explanations — and futures — have not always been easy to articulate.  You have been part of Brook Gallery’s story, and of mine, for a long time. Now feels like the right moment to reach out to you, properly and openly, as the Gallery begins a new chapter.

As you know, Brook Gallery has for many years held a quiet yet enduring place in the landscape of contemporary art in the South-West — and beyond.

Since its inception, the Gallery has stood for quality, integrity and scholarship. It has always been less a shop and more a place of encounter — between artist and collector, between seeing and being seen, between creativity and community.

In April 2023, I needed to step back.

Peter, my husband, had developed cognitive problems which we have since come to understand as frontotemporal dementia — behavioural variant (bvFTD). It changed our direction, our rhythm and our priorities. What had been steady and familiar required fresh attention: our lives, our values, our future.

As such, we entered a period of quiet — not because the art stopped, but because I needed to pause and realign. To make space for change.

Now, over two years on, Brook Gallery will awaken again — but in a way that honours what it has been while embracing what it must become.

Brook is being re-imagined as a space for connection, exploration and collaboration, where art is encountered through conversation, reflection and context rather than through a traditional shop-front model; where ideas, making and looking are given the time and attention they deserve.

This next chapter will be shaped through an ongoing practice of journaling and dialogue — a way of thinking aloud with and around the work. At times this will be in conversation with my oldest friend, Cathie, and at others with you, the artists, ideas and audiences as they emerge — allowing the Gallery to evolve in a more open, responsive way.

I very much hope that you will want to continue our collaboration as part of this evolving model. Your work, your thinking and your voice have been integral to what Brook Gallery has been, and I would value them greatly as the Gallery moves forward.

I would welcome hearing from you — whether to talk, to reflect, or simply to reconnect as Brook moves towards an operational model that makes sense in today’s world and allows for a necessary balance of priorities.

With warm wishes,

Angela Yarwood