Nigel Cooke

Titled Nigel Cooke: The Reclusive Eon, this presentation showcases works on canvas and paper that examine notions of time from art historical, geological, and personal perspectives. Informed by the natural world, the work of Spanish Baroque painter Diego Velázquez, evolution and biology, prehistory, and other subjects, the artworks in Pace’s exhibition depict elaborate layers of lines, forms, and colors.

“I thought about the colors of wine, of the chemistry of love, the layout of the heart. The fact that our most distant ancestors must have felt what we feel. Our passions contain eons,” the artist said in a statement about the exhibition.

For over 20 years, Cooke has created ambiguous, complex works on canvas and paper. Cooke draws inspiration for his evocative paintings from varied sources, with paleontology, neuroscience, classical mythology, and zoology among them. Blurring the line between abstraction and figuration, the artist’s work translates impressions of specific, international sites into an idiosyncratic and personal language of form, color, and calligraphic elements. Grappling with connections between the individual and multifarious histories and ecosystems of the world, Cooke’s paintings defy easy categorization.

Concurrent to Cooke’s exhibition in Palm Beach, Pace will present a recent work by the artist at Frieze Los Angeles.