daisy
cook
Selected Group Exhibitions 2006 Contemporary English Landscape, Waterhouse & Dodd, London 2004 Art London, Chelsea, London 2003 Stephen Lacey Gallery, London Art London, Chelsea, London Art 2003, Islington, London 2002 Zoe Benbow, Daisy Cook and Clare Wilson, London Art 2002, Islington, London 2001 Art London, Chelsea, London 
corporate collections
La Caixa Bank, Majorca |
view from Andrew Lambirth - May,2006 When Thomas Hardy wrote: 'Nature is played out as a Beauty, but not as a Mystery', he was voicing an authentic artistic response to the general longing to know more about the natural world which the study and pursuit of science had engendered. He went on: 'I don't want to see the original realities - as optical effects, that is. I want to see the deeper reality underlying the scenic, the expression of what are sometimes called abstract imaginings.' Daisy Cook makes paintings which deal with these abstract imaginings. She has also never been afraid to engage with beauty, though she is not drawn to its more obvious manifestations. Her latest paintings bear ample witness to this. The meeting point of land, sea and sky has long been a focus for her art. Cook makes paintings which take landscape as their subject without being explicitly topographical or descriptive. Through a suggestion of silvery clouds and mudflat she evokes a littoral: not a specific view or portrait of a place, but a larger statement about this type of country as a habitat for the spirit, a place where the imagination may soar. Photographs are used as reference, but the key energy of these paintings resides in Cook's singular ability to recognize and identify the extraordinary in the ordinary. Her particular quality of recognition breathes through these images, animating them. Intuition and chance play their part, but they would be inert without the guiding principle of the artist's vision. The pattern and rhythm of Cook's life has changed radically with the birth of her daughter, and instead of spending most days in her studio she is now limited to two or three much more intense sessions per week. This has focused and polarized her studio activity, giving it a different edge and set of priorities. At the same time the experience of motherhood ('the most tender thing I've ever felt') has undoubtedly fed into her work. solo exhibitions 2010 Restless Earth,Northcote Gallery,London 2008 Recollections,Northcote Gallery,London 2007 Weather Report,Northcote Gallery,London 2007 Flatlands, The Lynne Strover Gallery, Cambridge 2006 Small Journeys, Northcote Gallery Chelsea, London 2004 Even on This Shore, Northcote Gallery Chelsea, London 2003 Tabula Rasa, Stephen Lacey Gallery, London 2002 The Lynne Strover Gallery, Fenn Ditton, Cambridge 2001 Red Earth, Stephen Lacey Gallery, London 1999 Cuba, Stephen Lacey Gallery, London 1998 Northcote Gallery Battersea, London 1997 Northcote Gallery Battersea, London |