Life & Work with Joseph Brockwell of Atlanta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joseph Brockwell.

Hi Joseph, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I was born and raised in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and moved to Georgia in 2015. For my last year of middle school and full education of high school I was a student boarding at Riverside Military Academy. Frankly I didn’t love my time there but I did meet Mitch Freeman, who was my art teacher for several years. Mitch has since become a valued mentor and dear friend. His guidance, encouragement, and support might honestly be the only reason I’m an artist today. Before meeting him I never saw myself as an artist. He saw potential in my ability and set me down my path as a working fine art conceptual photographer. I graduated from SCAD with a BFA in winter 2024 and am currently earning my MFA.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Life always has challenges. For a long time , and still currently to an extent, I dealt with a lot of mental health challenges that I’m thankful to have largely worked through and grown from. The creative process itself also has no guarantees and the only way to get better is to keep making work, continue to learn, and push yourself to explore new techniques and expressions. SCAD can also be a tough school with challenging workloads and quick deadlines. Being able to get through that instilled a confidence in me that I didn’t previously have. As a working fine art artist you get rejection emails far more often then you get acceptance ones, but the key is staying resilient and not letting the rejections deter you. My work also leans towards the esoteric side so I’ve had to accept that not everyone will understand or appreciate it and stay true to my vision and process.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
As I’ve mentioned, I specialize in conceptual fine art photography. I’ve been featured in several local galleries including Mason Fine Art, The Bakery Atlanta, Atlanta Photography Group, and recently got published in Composition Magazine. My work often explores the idea of non-spaces, online environments intersecting with reality, and how different forms of infrastructure shape our being and relationship to one another as people. My bodies of work include series like “Drinks”, “Kara was here”, “Siblings”, and most recently “Spaces”. “Kara was here” was a project made for my senior capstone and was something that felt very different from what I had been working on prior. It went in a bit of an experimental direction and in that experimentation it broadened my process and approach tremendously.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
If you can, when you can, please go support local artists. Even just attending an exhibition or donating a small amount to a gallery goes a long way. I’m also a writer on Substack and you can find my work @joebr00k.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.brockwellphotography.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joebrookm8
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-brockwell-0a63ba274?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=android_app
• Other: https://substack.com/@joebr00k?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=6yfpz7