Bowditch 

James Brooks created "Bowditch" using silkscreen, a process that inherently allows for bold colors and flat shapes. Brooks came to maturity as an artist working for the WPA, in the 1930's, at the height of social realism. Yet by mid-century, Brooks had become a dedicated abstract expressionist, interested less in social commentary and more in pure form. The bright planes of color in “Bowditch” evoke a landscape, but one filtered through memory and feeling. One might even say it is a queer landscape. The mid-century was also the height of homophobic persecution, when one could not easily or readily name one's loves. Abstraction, then, became a kind of code, a way to hint at what could not be named. These shapes, these colors, their relationship to each other: these can be the elements of a feeling, a moment, a secret.