Captain's Cabin
Nigel Cooke
One of the many
interesting - and free - pop-ups surrounding Frieze Art Fair this
year was the Frieze West End Night. Amongst other exhibitions that
evening I visited Nigel Cooke's solo show at Modern Art, one of the
most engaging painting exhibitions I have been to of late.
I have always
identified with Cooke's painting's; to me they present a search. As
an artist, I have always felt that I am looking for something, and
though the subject of this search still eludes me, I feel that Cooke
and I are on the same journey.
Encountering
Captain's Cabin for the first time, the viewer is confronted by a
group of disparate elements,
seemingly unrelated but arranged in a manner that suggests an
underlying narrative. This,
to me, summarises Cooke's
process. A
deconstruction of the world through paint, used
as a method of assimilating
the vast wealth of information collected every day. He examines the
questions thrown up by this compulsory activity and the way in which
information is contorted through transmission -
both in everyday life and
through painting, a form of communication itself.
What is
fascinating about Cooke's work however, is the result of this
assimiliation - the creation of entirely new worlds. Worlds that feel
familiar and unfamiliar at once, uncanny.
Borrowing from art history's established traditions, everything
from Italian Baroque to
surrealism, the images produced make immediate sense on a visceral
level. The referential meaning of Cooke's chosen objects, arranged as
both landscape and still life simultaneously, also remain intact. Yet
as the eye moves from each element, encouraged to do so by Cooke's
careful composition, the juxtoposition of these items and techniques
confuses this understanding. A beautifully painted, scaled-up glass
eye rolls against an equally huge stack
of chained books entitled 'crap'. Objects
are pushed forward by large
sweeping brush work obscuring a small mound of bones. There are no
rules in Cooke's dark worlds. Here,
anything
goes.
It is pure
technical skill that brings these elements together so successfully.
The illusion of transparency in Cooke's false
eye is mesmerising and
there is both a sensitivity
and a freedom to his approach. Using
humour to break the
discomfort, the
scene is both playful and unnerving at once.
What
is interesting further still, is that it is not only one world that
Cooke creates, but many. This new world impacting on the world of the
viewer as new information to be transfererred, communicated and
transformed once more, splitting
these worlds further still. Yet,
for all this, no answers are provided. Only ever more questions, more
searching and endless
possibilities. But isn't
that wonderful?
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