MICHELE COOK
MFA ’25 Fine Arts Low-Residency
My work is a way for me to explore conceptual ideas about reading linguistic or found sign systems. I am curious about how these sign systems influence our perception of the world around us, where meaning originates and how it is recorded. I play with ideas of books and book art, trees that signal, and rocks that hold histories. Like poetry, my art offers multiple tangential or ambiguous associations, and I craft it to be enigmatic and slippery and ultimately irresolvable. My unique works on paper or editioned print series rely on printmaking techniques such as wood cut relief or collagraph prints made using collaged textures such as paper and tape. These impressions often become elements in compositions on paper or become the foundation for further printed additions such as stenciled elements or letterpress type. I also make handmade books, both unique and small editions, that feature printed imagery, collage compositions and text such as a poem. My large-scale oil paintings on canvas employ a wide range of colors and I often use stencils to add patterns.
Michele Cook came to art making later in life. She majored in English as an undergraduate, trained as a chef, relocated numerous times including ten years in Europe, and raised three children before taking up painting. This interest prompted her to enroll at the Hartford Art School where she took foundation courses, printmaking and book arts. She is currently based in South Carolina and has a private printmaking and art studio, Arcadia Press Arts.
