An opening reception will be held tonight for Grapevine artist Jonathan Brooks  at Metrognome Collective – Firehouse Gallery. If his name sounds familiar, but you just can’t place it, it may be because you recognize it from a different arena. Brooks was a regular performer with Undermain Theatre this past season, starring in everything from the musical Greendale to a new adaptation of Chekhov’s The Black Monk.

I interviewed Brooks for an Art&Seek Q&A during The Black Monk‘s run, in which he played Kovrin, the play’s main character. And while he was happy to talk about the show, the conversation often turned back to his artwork, which he said was his “favorite thing to do.”

“It’s the first thing that I’ve ever done artistically that I never once think about anyone else seeing it,” he said in the Undermain’s basement space in April. “I could paint a million paintings and have them stacked in my apartment and not care if anybody ever sees it. When I’m painting, I’m just not thinking about anything else, and I’m not thinking about the end result – I’m not thinking about whether people are going to like it — I’m not thinking about getting it done at a certain time. I’m just strictly doing that in that moment, and when it’s done, it’s done. It’s completely for myself, and I have complete control over what I’m trying to express.”