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| Paintings Drawings Sculptures Artist CV Statement Home © 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 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.”
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