Simon Cook painter
Simon was born in the Lancashire town of Lytham St. Anne's, and was brought up in Ambleside, a village in Cumbria, England's Lake District which features much in his work.
Simon is primarily a figurative painter and currently he is based between Belfast in Northern Ireland and Grange-Over-Sands in Cumbria, England.
The inspiration and influences in his work are many and varied and you can glean an understanding of these by checking out the artistic, cultural and creative processes and influences in the linked pages.
coming soon
coming soon
Ambleside Church of England Primary School in the background is the school that Simon attended from the age of four, it appears that the only thing to have changed are the cars in the carpark.
'Resbeck', the house in the Cumbrian village of Ambleside where Simon grew up.
The current view of Ambleside Mill and the Pottery Studio where Simon spent much of his childhood in the 1950s.
Grange Over Sands and the view of Morecambe Bay that would inspire artist or layman alike...
endeavouring
to make the
invisible
visible
Artist Statement
I’m essentially a painter with an imagination that can soar, and where artistic qualities often mingle toward the realm of humour. I enjoy crafting narrative visual work with literary and musical qualities. These give me the most satisfaction and fulfilment in general. I work best in a naturalistic manner primarily organising the surface and drawing on abstract comprehensions that become auxiliary to my making process in a naturalistic idiom.
I enjoy historical and theatrical imagery and their own characteristic architecture involving figures in such contexts.
For me painting is the exciting arrangement of different ‘personas’ represented by figures, objects, seascape or rivers. The relationship of a figure standing near a leafy tree engenders a very different feeling to the same figure standing in proximity to life sized tin soldier.
Children, domestic animals, toys, boats, costume, woodlands etc., appear often in my pictures. I ‘build’ my pictures as you would a house or stage set and these can take up to two or three months sometimes.
I’ve recently begun to value some operatic staging where music is integrated richly with the stage craft, architecture, costumes and figures.
An individual plant or flower can become a hybrid of two species so making the resulting new plant a bearer of the qualities of both parent growth forms. What makes painting exciting for me is the ability to hybrid the differing qualities and ‘personas’ of my chosen subjects and objects.
I owe much to my upbringing in the English Lake District in the early 50’s where wooden sail boat life, boathouses, riverscapes, lake birds, the fells, rain and rare sunshine were always present. I continue to draw upon memories and impressions from this time and these are often influential themes in the subject matter of my paintings.
As time has progressed I have found myself drawn increasingly toward the work of the ‘Old Masters’. I have much to learn from them and have great admiration for their craftsmanship and the painterly subtleties, to which I aspire in my own work.
Being brought up in a large studio pottery in Ambleside Cumbria has engendered a love of craftsmanship and an appreciation of the craft processes involved in the Applied Arts.
I’ve learnt to see that the qualities of drawing and painting go beyond the purely visual. The movement of a Vivaldi piccolo sequence can take the same musical paths seen similarly in a long fluttering silk ribbon in the sky. Learning from these non visual arts bring enriching qualities to my purely visual understanding and ongoing expressions.
It was Paul Klee who said he endeavoured to make the invisible visible.