Wells College will host the return of a former area artist to central New York when James A. Cook shows his mixed media work in the String Room Gallery at Wells College, Aurora. Wednesday evening, Wells faculty, students and the public will join Cook to commemorate the opening of the exhibit with a reception.
Photo provided
Artist creates unconventional pieces
Artist creates unconventional pieces
Cook, a former professor at Cornell, currently lives in Tucson, Ariz., where he serves as the chair of the 3D Division of the University of Arizona's College of Fine Arts. His art combines video art with sculpture that most often involves found objects.
“I enjoy that relationship with the moving image in that static context, together it generates a different charge,” Cook said.
Some of Cook's recent work has a rustic, Southwestern appearance that naturalizes the art. This quality is often created by the found objects he incorporates into his structures, such as horse limbs and tree trunks. Cook's sculptures do not meet the conventional definition of clay or plaster molded and manipulated into particular shapes.
“All my work is very ontologically based, it asks similar questions over and over again regarding our relationship with the present,” Cook said.
One installation that will occupy the String Room Gallery pits two horseshoe-shaped 5.1 surround sound systems against each other, creating an oval within which the spectator can step. One system plays the sound of freeway traffic, and the other features ocean waves crashing against surf.
“Years ago I read in Scientific American that there's a pitch shared by those sounds, and I liked that idea of the relationship between the passivity of the surf and the congested, tension-filled experience of being on the freeway,” Cook said.
Another thought-provoking piece weighs the instinctual philosophy of Lao Tzu against the rationalism of Descartes. Cook propped up a wooden box with pieces of wooden oars. The box is three-quarters full of water, within which several more oar pieces are upright like pylons. The linear, intellectual stream of Descartes is upheld, but also somewhat mitigated by the wood of Lao Tzu's intuitiveness.
“What drives much of my work is that division within myself and ourselves in terms of how we go about our activities - whether it's a more programmatic intellect or feeling our way about,” Cook said.
Cook submitted his work to William Roberts, an art professor at Wells who will also invite Cook to talk with Wells students about art at a lecture on the Monday prior to the reception.
“He's clearly a serious artist in the professional sense,” said William Roberts, an art professor at Wells.
But Cook hopes that his exhibit will enlighten more than just art students.
“I want it to hopefully be an experience that, while walking through it, generates a contemplative relationship between the spectator and the work,” Cook said.
Staff writer David Wilcox can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 245 or david.wilcox@lee.net
If you go
What: Opening reception for sculpture exhibit by James A. Cook
When: 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday
Where: String Room Gallery, Wells College, Aurora
For details: Call 364-3237 or visit www.wells.edu for exhibit hours
“I enjoy that relationship with the moving image in that static context, together it generates a different charge,” Cook said.
Some of Cook's recent work has a rustic, Southwestern appearance that naturalizes the art. This quality is often created by the found objects he incorporates into his structures, such as horse limbs and tree trunks. Cook's sculptures do not meet the conventional definition of clay or plaster molded and manipulated into particular shapes.
“All my work is very ontologically based, it asks similar questions over and over again regarding our relationship with the present,” Cook said.
One installation that will occupy the String Room Gallery pits two horseshoe-shaped 5.1 surround sound systems against each other, creating an oval within which the spectator can step. One system plays the sound of freeway traffic, and the other features ocean waves crashing against surf.
“Years ago I read in Scientific American that there's a pitch shared by those sounds, and I liked that idea of the relationship between the passivity of the surf and the congested, tension-filled experience of being on the freeway,” Cook said.
Another thought-provoking piece weighs the instinctual philosophy of Lao Tzu against the rationalism of Descartes. Cook propped up a wooden box with pieces of wooden oars. The box is three-quarters full of water, within which several more oar pieces are upright like pylons. The linear, intellectual stream of Descartes is upheld, but also somewhat mitigated by the wood of Lao Tzu's intuitiveness.
“What drives much of my work is that division within myself and ourselves in terms of how we go about our activities - whether it's a more programmatic intellect or feeling our way about,” Cook said.
Cook submitted his work to William Roberts, an art professor at Wells who will also invite Cook to talk with Wells students about art at a lecture on the Monday prior to the reception.
“He's clearly a serious artist in the professional sense,” said William Roberts, an art professor at Wells.
But Cook hopes that his exhibit will enlighten more than just art students.
“I want it to hopefully be an experience that, while walking through it, generates a contemplative relationship between the spectator and the work,” Cook said.
Staff writer David Wilcox can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 245 or david.wilcox@lee.net
If you go
What: Opening reception for sculpture exhibit by James A. Cook
When: 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday
Where: String Room Gallery, Wells College, Aurora
For details: Call 364-3237 or visit www.wells.edu for exhibit hours
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