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© 2009, Bill Cook

The voice that speaks through my work is universal by intent as it encompasses the basic human need for belonging.

My work deals with memory, recall and that mental space where feelings, and emotions create an awareness of connection. I’ve set out to create a feeling of being torn between place of origin and place of abode. The works play on the psychological tug of war of being physically ‘here’, while through accident of birth, history, shared language, family and experience, of being emotionally ‘there’.

This is the dilemma of all who have moved from one country of origin and culture to another.

The work owes a depth of gratitude to the classical world and its seminal influences on shaping our own culture, attitudes and values.

In both the paintings and ceramic sculptures I’ve used a  number of multi-images to evoke separation, impermanence, historical continuity and above all else, of being from two worlds while not belonging in either completely. All of my images set out to evoke narrative and story, that will vary from viewer to viewer.

I am attempting to pursue that particular kind of visual exhilaration that happens when an image makes a mental space where feeling, perception, and imagination  can  all dovetail and become a threshold for connection and interconnection.

The viewing of my work is designed to be more than a passive, visual, receptive experience.

Quotations

“This century, as has been pointed out many times is the century of emigration, enforced and voluntary. That is to say a century of partings without end, and a century haunted by the memories of these partings.”
“The Shape of Pocket” by John Berger, Page 59

“The past the immigrant brings with him is projected into the future for he can only define his expectations in terms of his past. It undergoes odd transformations since the immigrant forgets he brought it.”

“If the future is shaped by this memory the past is resuscitated by this optimism. He has already (the migrant) confused hope and memory, optimism and regret, history and dream.”
“American Masters – The Voice of Myth” by Brian O’Doherty, Page 149



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