Brooke Major is an American artist born and raised in Atlanta, GA. As a child, Brooke was always at the top of her class in drawing, painting and in addition was an avid equestrian. Her parents were intentional throughout the course of her youth in exposing her to new places, further increasing her deep passion for art and architecture. These are the passions that led her to move to Normandy to breed and raise horses for the sport of showjumping. Brooke initially moved to Paris to study political science at an American university, but felt herself drawn more towards the arts and followed auditing classes at the Beaux Arts school in Paris. It was during her time at the university where she began to experiment with oil paint as a sculptural medium, using a mixture of thickened titanium white manipulated onto canvas as she developed her practice in painting. Following her childhood passions, art and horses, and moved to Normandy to begin putting to action her dream of breeding show jumpers. She set up her art studio that had originally been used as a grain loft in an eighteenth century farmhouse on the beach where she currently paints and raises her horses. Brooke has been living and working as a professional artist for the past 20 years and shares her time between the United States (Georgia) and France. Brooke sculpts oil paint, using pallet knives challenging both techniques of painting and sculpting and exemplifying light and shadow. She chooses all of her subjects from her childhood experiences: traveling, horses and architecture. Brooke also depicts her everyday life in her recent subject of her landscapes of the typical Normandy countryside. Her mantra is “I paint because I need to. I paint what my hand wants to paint.”