michael cook

welcome

archive

camino real

cabazon

san pedro

love

orton

...michael cook@...

...instructions...

animal, vegetable,...

...suite 71645...

...sublimation...

...hour, day, month,year...

intimate video

ancestors

domestic sculpture

firstman (clip)

landEscape (clip)

dirge (clip)

survey (clip)

biography

bibliography

essays/reviews

veneer: kathleen stewart howe

manifest destiny, the art of michael cook: david leeming

mythical landscape laid bare: ellen berkovitch

filtering apocalypse through illusion: kenneth baker

visualizing the end of the world: lynn gumpert

collections

contact

contact the artist

artist statement

arteunico

artnet

university of new mexico

acquiring artwork

art

MICHAEL COOK

I am fascinated by the anachronistic qualities inherent in painted images and how these qualities offer the viewer an experience that is something in addition to illusion, composition, material strategies or the sensuality of paint, by simultaneously acknowledging that these formal qualities are a truth by their use but not a substitute for reality-the reality of the American experience.

My work is a personal reference to my memory. How does an image exist culturally and emblematically as a painted form? How those idealistic conceptions from childhood collide with the present moment of life is what interests me. My projects are characterized by interlocking bodies of work that exist within a larger thematic construct.

I am interested in conceptions of originality, authenticity, and family in a culture increasingly dependent upon technology for communication.