Kelsey Brookes is a painter based in San Diego. After graduating college Kelsey began working for the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) conducting scientific research during the first outbreak of West Nile Virus in the United States. After two years at the CDC, he moved to San Diego to work for a local lab that was creating blood tests for HIV, HCV, and HCB.

After four years of working in that lab, Kelsey left the scientific community to pursue a career as a painter. Kelsey’s artistic pursuit stemmed from a year and a half spent traveling and living in a van in Australia, where he refined his artistic abilities and began surfing. Today, Kelsey is a well respected painter whose art melds his two passions of science and art. His pieces center around hallucinogenic compounds and their molecular make-up. Through his brush work he articulates and showcases an array of psychoactive drugs in a unique and fascinating manner.

Kelsey’s new exhibit, PLANTS OF THE GODS, is on display at Eric Firestone Gallery in East Hampton, NY from June 20th - July 7th. For more of Kelsey’s work visit: www.kelseybrookes.com and follow him on Instagram at www.instagram.com/kelseybrookes.