Spotlight Artist

Mel Cook

Midwest
Artist profile photo
Featured in New American Paintings

Artist Statement

My paintings feature humorous landscapes where representation is fetishized. Using a maximalist approach in paintings that slip between modes of representation, I address the process of responding to the spatial illusions of painting, materiality, and imagery. My work features warped spaces where figure and ground merge. Drawn lines help demarcate the slippage between what is and what might be, calling attention to the constructed setlike spaces. Using clichés as props, the work points to a larger cultural obsession with the idealization of the everyday and its link to the “feminine.”

Artist's Additional works

Works shared by the artist outside of their featured New American Paintings selections

Featured artwork
Featured artwork

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