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Online

Nigel Cooke

In Focus

Feb 17 – Mar 19, 2022

Nigel Cooke, Rubino Zancuda, 2021, Acrylic on cotton blotting paper, 160 cm × 116 cm (63" × 45-11/16") 167.2 cm × 123.2 cm × 5.5 cm (65-13/16" × 48-1/2" × 2-3/16"), framed
Nigel Cooke is known for his complex, layered, and evocative works on canvas and paper. Through his practice, the artist mines multifarious histories, systems, and sciences to create a visual language that blurs the boundary between abstraction and figuration. Cooke draws inspiration for his work from paleontology, neuroscience, classical mythology, zoology, and other sources to tell stories about individual and collective experiences.
Nigel Cooke, Rubino Mariposa, 2021, Acrylic on cotton blotting paper, 160 cm × 116 cm (63" × 45-11/16") 167.2 cm × 123.2 cm × 5.5 cm (65-13/16" × 48-1/2" × 2-3/16"), framed
In conjunction with Pace’s in-person presentation of recent works by Cooke at its Palm Beach gallery, this online exhibition spotlights four large-scale works on paper from the artist’s Rubino series. With these works, the artist uses linear forms to explore natural and psychic landscapes. Their dynamic, energetic compositions are informed by the artist’s experiences in the Italian Alps and on Spanish islands, where he created small plein-air watercolors upon which the larger pieces are based.
Nigel Cooke, Rubino Cascada, 2021, Acrylic on cotton blotting paper, 160 cm × 116 cm (63" × 45-11/16") 167.2 cm × 123.2 cm × 5.5 cm (65-13/16" × 48-1/2" × 2-3/16"), framed
While these works on paper appear largely abstract, they are deeply engaged with Cooke’s encounters and memories of various sites worldwide. The title of the series refers to the rich red color that r that anchors each work, and varied secondary titles reference in Spanish, the subject matter of the pieces. Painterly and visceral, these works contain secrets that are poised to be unearthed, deriving their power from subtlety and suggestion.
“I try to capture this tangle of things in coded marks, developing them as I go until they talk to me in their own terms, in a kind of private language that makes some sense to me in ways I couldn’t explain,” the artist has said of the Rubino series. “It starts to speak of what living feels like, what it is to see things in many ways at once.”
Nigel Cooke, Rubino Flores, 2021, Acrylic on cotton blotting paper, 160 cm × 116 cm (63" × 45-11/16") 167.2 cm × 123.2 cm × 5.5 cm (65-13/16" × 48-1/2" × 2-3/16"), framed
Cooke’s strokes of various weights also convey messages about the human condition. As the artist once said, “For me, the line is endlessly mysterious—it is sometimes striving and obliterating, but elsewhere it becomes halting, broken, or wilted, fragile—and it’s hard to know why … To me, this dialogue recalls human relations, and the inner life of the individual subject, as much as the ecosystems and cultural frameworks the self-negotiates in the world every day. Like dissonant and harmonious musical notes, the personality of the line has the power to capture the essence of our most basic and timeless triumphs and disasters.”
To inquire about works by Nigel Cooke, please email us at inquiries@pacegallery.com.

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  • Past, Nigel Cooke, In Focus, Feb 17, 2022