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John Brewer
whatever’s cool or inspiring me atm
@jhonbrewer33

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At the risk of sounding pretentious, I thought I’d share what’s been on my mind recently.

Every day, I become more convinced that certainty is the root of every human problem and insecurity. The way I see it, we all use certainty to escape from existential terror. We’re terrified of death, change, and our own insignificance, and this all makes us feel incredibly unstable. In search of stability, we latch on to the closest, most concrete thing we can find, and I could think of hundreds of examples of this.

I’ve met people who find certainty in masculinity, in their religious beliefs, in their lack of religious beliefs, or in their own rightness. I’ve met other people who find certainty in money, power, addiction, numbness, and even self-hatred.

To me, it feels like everybody’s in on some secret and I missed the memo, because every day that passes I feel less and less certain about everything.

In the few chances I’ve gotten to challenge people’s certainties face-to-face, without fail, the conversation turns into something like a marooned sailor defending his campfire. They’ll use their certainty to run from something they’d do anything not to face, the fact that we don’t know anything at all.

I don’t think I’d care too much if I didn’t feel like I was getting cheated out of an honest answer, or if I couldn’t see the harm that certainty causes. I honestly can’t think of a single human error that wasn’t caused by certainty of some kind, I mean how many wars have been started just so people could sleep at night, certain that they were the bigger man, the better religion, or the more deserving group?

Recently, my art has become an increasingly focused study on certainty, like a series of small efforts trying to tear it all down. I hope I’m doing it because I think an uncertain world would be a world with more love, curiosity, and humility, but sometimes I suspect that I’m doing it out of jealousy, that I’m doing it because some part of me wishes I could feel certain for just a day. by @jbrewermoodboard

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11 days ago

“Travels with Charley” - John Steinbeck
Another incredible Steinbeck book which has quickly become one of my all-time favorites.

The book recounts Steinbeck’s journey across America with his dog, Charley. His exchanges with everyday Americans becomes a kind of meditation on the American thirst for movement, progress, and hatred, and the motivations behind those desires.

One of the most interesting parts of the book is how Steinbeck speaks of the newly introduced interstate highways, as he spends most of his journey avoiding them. One of the few times he uses one, he remarks that “When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing.”

It made me think of the other parts of modern society that give us speed and certainty in exchange for real connection and humanity, paving over our fears and insecurities with neat, polished goods. by @jbrewermoodboard

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3 months ago

The Art of Illustration (Credits below). I’ve never fully understood why illustration isn’t generally seen as a fine art medium. Museums are filled with paintings, sculptures, and videos, but I’ve never seen any of the incredible works of Harry Clarke, Edmund Dulac, or even Norman Rockwell.

I understand that people want fine art these days to be more abstract, and self-referential than these illustrations which lend themselves more towards story telling. But fine art wasn’t always this way, and I can’t help but feel confused by how people can put a rule like that on a space that wasn’t supposed to have any rules at all.

Why shouldn’t illustration have its place in the gallery? Why shouldn’t the work and craftsmanship of Norman Rockwell be celebrated just as we do Warhol, or Pollock?

1. The Connoisseur (1962), Norman Rockwell
2. Princess and the Pea (1985-1995), Edmund Dulac
3. Calvin and Hobbes (1985-1995), Bill Watterson
4. Diving In (1935), J.C. Leyendecker
5. Harry Clarke for Edgar Allen Poe’s “Tales of Mystery and Imagination” (1919)
6. Before the Date (1949), Norman Rockwell
7. Spring Chicken (1878-1957), Lawson Wood
8. Triple Self Portrait (1960), Norman Rockwell by @jbrewermoodboard

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6 months ago

Art that asks questions. Quotes taken from a 2024 interview with Cillian Murphy for GQ magazine. I’m very interested in the way mystery makes art that’s hard to look away from. Why are we so obsessed with mystery? I feel like I spend so much time and thought on questions with no answers, things we can never know, rather than questions that have already been resolved. It's the same thing for art; the art that sticks with me is also the art that asks questions instead of finding the answer for me.

Comment a question you can never stop thinking about, or the name of a piece of art that makes you feel this way.

1. “Us” (2019)
2. “Cillian Murphy Is the Man of the Moment” GQ (2024)
3. Max Ernst, The Fireside Angel (1937)
4. “Uncut Gems” (2019)
5. Francis Bacon, Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953)
6. “Cancer of the Skull” by Cameron Winter (2024)
7. “Heretic” (2024)
8. Phil Hale, Pharcyde (2013)
9. “Cillian Murphy Is the Man of the Moment” GQ (2024) by @jbrewermoodboard

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6 months ago

Rereading East of Eden right now, my favorite book of all time, a family saga, and an allegory for the story of Cain and Abel. Reading this for the first time I fell in love with the book’s introspective style of writing, and its concepts of rejection, brotherhood, choices, and our responsibility for the choices we make.

One of those books that fills you with a sense of importance, as if you know you’ll never read a book quite like it again. I also just love the way Steinbeck writes his characters.

People mostly know Steinbeck for his other big book The Grapes of Wrath, but Steinbeck himself thought of east of eden as his best work. he says in the dedication page that East of Eden is a box, and, “nearly everything i have is in it, and it’s still not full.” by @jbrewermoodboard

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7 months ago

Chasing the Spectacle. Quotes taken from a 2022 interview with Jordan Peele for Empire Magazine. I’m very interested with the idea of the artist’s job being to create spectacle. What does that mean for my work? Are we addicted to the spectacle? When is it best to look away? by @jbrewermoodboard

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7 months ago

sanctity of the body by @jbrewermoodboard

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7 months ago

yolo is pretty serious by @jbrewermoodboard

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7 months ago

hyperfixations

1. Nina Simone “Feelings”
2. Good Will Hunting (1997)
3 & 4. “Sound-Induced Flash Illusion”
5. Marty Supreme (December 25, 2025)
6. The Egg (A Story by Andy Weir)
7 & 8. Christopher Anderson’s Vanity Fair White House Cabinet Portraits
9. The AI Bubble (Bloomberg News reporting)
10. Eastern White Pine Tree by @jbrewermoodboard

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10 months ago

A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969)
not a movie i expected to blow my mind, but wow. a total masterclass in what it means to “fail,” like maybe real failure isn’t losing, but not trying at all. maybe life is rewarding for the process, and not for some kind of good ending. charlie brown never really wins, but he never stops trying either. anyways, highly recommend, you can pirate it literally anywhere. by @jbrewermoodboard

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a year ago

a moodboard is a collection of ideas that rarely sense together by @jbrewermoodboard

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a year ago

yung lean for @subwaytakes by @jbrewermoodboard

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a year ago