Peter Brook | Colour, Space and Control

28 September 2026

Written by Zic Liu

Recently, we visited Five Walls Gallery to see Peter Brook’s exhibition, Hot Minute.

When we first entered the gallery, the strong visual impact of the works immediately caught our attention. Blue blocks of colour and white lines fill the canvas, with fine lines crossing and connecting across the surface. From a distance, the works feel controlled and calm, with an almost regular sense of order.

Colour in Brook’s work is more than a background. It also plays an important role in creating space. When different colours are placed next to each other, some areas seem to move forward while others move back. Although the paintings are flat, they slowly create a sense of depth and movement as you look at them.

This sense of space is closely connected to Brook’s observation of urban architecture. He looks at the clear geometric structures on the outside of buildings, as well as the more complex spaces behind them. In his paintings, architecture is broken down into lines, boundaries, directions and spatial relationships, then reorganised into abstract compositions.

This became especially clear when seeing the works in person.

At first, the repeated lines seem to follow a clear pattern. When you look more closely, you start to notice many small differences. The lines change direction, the shapes are irregular, and there are small changes in their size and spacing. Similar line structures appear across different colours, from bright blue, green and yellow to deeper brown and black. Each painting creates a different sense of space, and the change in colour gives the same visual language a completely different atmosphere.

This also made us notice how Brook works with control. Every line, the distance between each block of colour, and even the direction of the brushstrokes feel carefully considered. This precision makes the small changes within each painting stand out even more.

This was one of our favourite parts of seeing the exhibition in person.

Photos can capture the strong colours and compositions of these works, but some details are much easier to understand in the gallery. The surface, scale, and changes in space as you view the paintings from different distances become much clearer when you are standing in front of the works.

Five Walls Gallery

EXHIBITION RUNS 11 SEPTEMBER -3 OCTOBER 2026

lvl 1 / 119 Hopkins Street Footscray, VIC 3011

Wednesday-Saturday 12-5pm