“(Adam) Brooks's photographs Meaning and Perception use the human body as their palimpsest; the titles are tattooed onto too-perfect bodies, questioning contemporary society's tendency to use print media to push unrealistic images of the body into our cultural consciousness. In recent years, the mutilation of the body, whether through tattooing, plastic surgery, or anorexia, has become the height of fashion. In these photographs, the inscription of two difficult-to-define words – "meaning" and "perception" – onto godlike bodies serve to remind us that the media images that lead so many to destroy themselves are nothing but smoke and mirrors, as impossible to grasp as abstract words, and should not lead us into such extremes of self-torture.”

Excerpt from a review of the 2001 ‘Contextual’ exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center, by Jill Elaine Hughes, New Art Examiner, July/August 2001.

“Tattooed-body photos give attitude to the new code words: content, discourse, meaning, articulation.”

Excerpt from Adam Brooks – Voice Choices, Kim Levin, Village Voice, 8 February, 1994.