anita cooke:

searching for gold

May 1-30, 2024

FIRST WEDNESDAY OPENING: May 1, FROM 6 - 9PM

ARTICULATE ARTIST TALK: SUNDAY, may 5, AT 4PM.

NORMAL GALLERY HOURS: TUE - SUN, 12PM - 6PM

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Anita Cooke has lived and worked as an artist and teacher in New Orleans since 1980. She has taught ceramics at Tulane University, Loyola University (New Orleans), Stephen F. Austin State University, Western Michigan University, and out of her studio in New Orleans.

Anita has always been visually attracted to and subsequently moved emotionally by mere multitudes of objects: stacks, layers, piled bundles, large groupings of objects, filled cubicles and compartments, rows of similar or dissimilar objects, and repeated patterns. Her process is one of rhythmic, repetitive tearing, cutting, and sewing together of multiples of painted canvas strips that are then layered densely together to make thickly wrought bas-relief wall constructions.

As sentient beings, we are on a quest. We occupy a planet that we call Earth - that we know virtually nothing about. We do not know what, why, how or where we are, no matter the number of questions and answers we pose and partially solve through scientific, spiritual and cultural means. So we continuously look for the treasure of what we can do, of what we can find, of what we can learn, of what we can feel, of what we might become- of what makes us and this place, precious- like gold. 

 It could start with our breath - our Golden Breath. We breathe - there is an expansion and contraction, there is the concave and the convex, there is a rhythm of opposites that reflects the repetitions of the cycles we have observed in our world and connects us to it. Perhaps it is in a network - perhaps in a Primary Network of sorts - a colorful network created through our connections with family, friends or even a person we meet randomly or briefly. Perhaps it is on a Pathway, a direction we have chosen; perhaps one that traverses through a blooming garden. Perhaps it is hovering, iridescently, in a preponderance of color and light. Or perhaps the gold lies finally exposed and Revealed in what has been ripped apart, injured, and in need of mending. 

The works presented here are the first in a larger series I have planned called Searching for Gold. 

In 2005 Anita was a recipient of a Louisiana Fellowship Award and in 2017 she was honored by the New Orleans Museum of Art at the Love in the Garden patron benefit. Anita currently works with sewing and fabric, mixed media, and collage. Her work has been shown nationally and is in numerous collections throughout the United States.

This exhibition is presented alongside the latest works from Linda Jeffers, Nonney Oddlokken, and John Isiah Walton. All works from these artists are on view, free of charge, during regular gallery hours (12 - 6 p.m., Tue - Sun) from May 1 - 30, 2024.