Lot Essay
Cook is concerned with the identity of the canvas, taking canvases, painting them in single colours and adding one to the other as coloured units:
'When I start painting I usually have a clear idea of the shape, arrived at from making scaled drawings. I start to draw by assembling the stretched canvases to a preconceived shape. I usually have an independent idea about the colour surface. Once I have applied the colour to the canvases it is a battle between the shape (drawing) and the colour. Both undergo changes. The painting is finished when the colour and the drawing seem to achieve independent identities and through this 'Identity in Difference' are able to relate' (Exhibition Catalogue, The New Generation, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1966, p. 56).
'When I start painting I usually have a clear idea of the shape, arrived at from making scaled drawings. I start to draw by assembling the stretched canvases to a preconceived shape. I usually have an independent idea about the colour surface. Once I have applied the colour to the canvases it is a battle between the shape (drawing) and the colour. Both undergo changes. The painting is finished when the colour and the drawing seem to achieve independent identities and through this 'Identity in Difference' are able to relate' (Exhibition Catalogue, The New Generation, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 1966, p. 56).