Show Notes
Brooke Gassiot is a professional artist whose work explores the impact of childbirth, aging, and disease on the female body through evocative video installations and paintings. In this episode, we discuss Brooke’s art and what it takes to sustain the life of a full-time working artist.
Formerly of Austin, Texas, Brooke has lived on Vashon Island since 2020. She studied art at The University of Texas at Austin and in Tuscany, Italy. Her work has been exhibited at leading venues including Lawndale Art Center in Houston, The Contemporary Austin, and Blue Star Contemporary, and is held in both corporate and private collections. Brooke is also a co-founder of the Texas Sculpture Group and the ICOSA Collective Gallery. She completed a residency at the Joya art center in Spain.
Here on Vashon, Brooke supports the local arts community and works with the installation team at Vashon Center for the Arts.
More about her art
Through her Ferry Kiss Studio, Brooke has created a line of greeting cards, calendars, and stickers.
Her series The Inner Lives of Women features nine large paintings and accompanying installations that explore what it truly feels like to inhabit a female body in today’s world. Surrounded by images that tell women how they should look, act, and feel, this work turns the lens inward, reclaiming the narrative from the inside out.
Each painting begins with a blue cyanotype ground made from plant matter and flower exposures. The installations extend the series into three-dimensional space through video projections cast onto life-sized found objects — a bathtub, a baby crib — everyday vessels that have held women’s bodies and stories.
Together, the paintings and projections invite viewers to step into the emotional and physical landscapes of womanhood: places of birth, loss, resilience, and renewal.
At its core, Brooke’s work is an act of reclamation — a way to honor the complexity of being female and to remind us that what we feel on the inside is both valid and beautiful.
Where to see her art:
Brooke’s paintings will be on display during the December VIVA studio tour at stop # 27 at the ‘Viva Info Center & Gallery.’
Her Ferry Kiss Studio cards, calendars, and stickers will be at:
Learn more about Brooke at