I can’t believe I’ve left it this long to learn about this artist. I first encountered Cook when I was looking at deconstructive montage and it was his humour that grabbed me. ‘Livin the dream’ has similar themes to my earlier work of alienation and home / belonging, but from a different perspective, of course. A deeper one. The work visualises the impact of dislocation and the inequality with which Australia continues to live. It links dysfunction to displacement and loss of community. Cook feels the connection of identity to place that is evoked in this work is universal.
Sold (above) and Welcome Home (below) from ‘Living the dream’ (2020) https://www.michaelcook.net.au/
Yet I am researching Cook for my current work. It is the perspective, an unexpected one mixed with humour and the visualisation of one idea. Usually a single word or short phrase in the title of the photo or body of work.
Invasion places an imaginative eye in Australian colonial history and turns around the dominant view, taking alien creatures into iconic London-based cityscapes, with white urban residents their victims.
Beach Grubs (above) and Giant Lizards & Laser Girls (below) from ‘Invasion’ (2017) https://www.michaelcook.net.au/
When I look at ‘Invasion’ I was excited, as it depicted what I wanted to say with my ‘Australia Day’, but better. The fear he captures on the precious little faces. Yet, as I scrolled on I realise I can’t do anything like I was thinking. He’s already done it, even set it in London, but with ten times the weight.
In ‘Majority Rule’ (2014), below, he asks the viewer to speculate about an Australia where Aboriginal people are the majority. Again, humour and a striking visual joke using repetition and line to accentuate the weight of the majority of whites in the everyday life of business and politics. Again, iconic locations in Canberra and Sydney. I have no idea where he found the 1980’s bus in 2014. Thats the thing about this work. All dated in this last decade, it has a ‘retro’ quality that reminds me of my childhood. And I guess that’s the idea. It's the images that formed his view on life and the thing he draws upon in his work.
As I work my way through his work I also see similar themes to mine, dreams, fantasy but also imagination - an imagined reality he or his protagonists conjure up. Mostly with humour but always with wonder and possibility.