Artists Spotlight: Judy Cooke
Judy Cooke, painter
RACC 2003 Individual Visual Arts Fellowship
One of the Northwest’s most influential abstract painters, Judy Cooke has investigated abstract imagery and the structure of painting for over 30 years.
In 2003, Judy was the recipient of the RACC Fellowship Award in Visual Arts. She was recognized as one of the strongest abstract painters in the Northwest. "Her work shows a mastery of basic processes of image creation with gorgeously worked surfaces that are formally both intriguing and thoughtful...She is an example to generations of students and fellow artists," explained the Fellowship panelists.
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| Judy Cooke, World News, 2006, Courtesy of Elizabeth Leach Gallery |
Judy has also received the prestigous Flintridge Grant in 2005-06, which recognizes artists working in fine arts and crafts media whose work demonstrates high artistic merit and a distinctive voice for 20 or more years. And she has been awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship in Painting from the Oregon Arts Commission and a Visual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Judy has exhibited both nationally and locally. Recent local exhibits are: A 2002 retrospective exhibition at Marylhurst College’s Art Gym; Cairo- Paris Paintings and Drawings from 2001-2005 (Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 2005); A Century of Collage a Group Exhibition at Elizabeth Leach Gallery in the Gallery's celebration of 25 years in 2006.
In the spring of 2007 her work was featured at the Tacoma Art Museum's 8th Northwest Biennial. Individual artists were invited to participate in the exhibition through a collaborative jury by David Kiehl, Curator of Prints at the Whitney Museum of American Art and Rock Hushka, Curator of Contemporary and Northwest Art at Tacoma Art Museum.
Cooke will show some of her current work at Elizabeth Leach's Gallery May 1-31, 2008 at 417 NW 9th, Portland. Within her new body of work, Splits + Divisions (at right) , Cooke explores a highly physical painting process, working on the surface of found aluminum plates, rubber, and wooden panel surfaces. Through sanding, scraping, and stripping the panels, she simultaneously defines and defies the medium, exposing what lies beneath.
Irregular in shape, sometimes staggered when assembled, Cooke’s work continues to cross the precipice between painting and sculpture. The split or division in the individual paintings reflect the artist’s ongoing formal process, as well as correspond with the artist’s personal perceptions of current politics. Cooke’s awareness of, and frustration with, the war is subtly made manifest within her dark, somber palette, use of rubber, and use of the black line throughout the work. Though the dark line continues, the introduction of color later in the series lifts the mood, the work becoming more expressive and painterly
Judy Cooke received her degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in the early 1960’s and moved to Portland in the late 1960’s. She is a retired Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing at Pacific NW College of Art. Recently she was an artist-teacher in the MFA/Visual Art Program at Vermont College.
Contact Information:
website: www.elizabethleach.com/Artist-Detail.cfm?ArtistsID=21
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RACC Staff to Contact
Mary Bauer
Communications Associate
503.823.5426
mbauer@racc.org
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