Casey Cook

Casey Cook studied at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles and then received her MFA from UCLA in 1997. Before completing her degree, she had already begun showing her work in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. In New York, she was included in the exhibition of young Los Angeles painters curated by David Pagel at Deitch Projects in 1998. Since that time, she has continued to show in New York and Los Angeles as well as participate in shows abroad in Zurich and Turin. After living and making art in NYC for 8 years, she currently lives in Carrboro, NC.

Casey Cook’s engaging combination of figure, line, and text create paintings that may read as abstract landscapes. Her chosen colors and images seem the most challenging as a starting point, while many of the images are culled from erotic depictions of women. The bland and cliché would seem to be emptied and impoverished as Roland Barthes would describe them, unproductive for an artist. However, Cook pursues her curiosity, orchestrating fields of mysterious enchantment. Lines are spliced askew and interrupted and images are repeated. Casey Cook dares herself to use flat colors and vacant signs. She reconsiders them in a new and impartial way to create a dark but alluring space – a dangerous romance.