Nigel Cooke was born in Manchester, 1973 now lives & works in London.
Here is a snipit of an interview taken from papercoffin.com:
Craig Garrett: Painters, unfairly or not, are always expected to be able to comment on their place in the history of their medium. What episodes in the history of painting have shaped your artistic development? Your attention to detail, for instance, is often labeled ‘Flemish.’
Nigel Cooke: I’m interested in the history of painting as a kind of dictionary of ideals that I’m trying to ransack as completely as possible. I want all the characteristics of painting, from the retarded to the sophisticated, to be simultaneously represented, as though the whole past lives of the medium were flashing before its eyes. So it becomes kind of ahistorical. It’s a kind of parody of the doomed ‘last paintings’ that some artists tried to engineer in the 20th century — a death of painting played out as one big, bloated painting project.
The Flemish thing is a part of this plurality — it’s about giving an intense visual identity to every inch of the image. In my case, this isn’t just about the close rendering of objects (which of course is important), but the use of a range of painting sensibilities alongside those objects.
Below are some of his pieces:
Nigel Cooke – The Paintis On The Road To
Nigel Cooke – New Accursed Art Club
One of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. The earliest paintings were not representational but ornamental; they consisted of patterns or designs rather than pictures.
Paintings can be almost as intricate and perfect as photographs; they also offer a lot of artistic license; you will get to look at the lush landscape and the artist’s ability to work creatively at the same time.