Ian Cook
Multidisciplinary Scottish artist, exploring myths, spirituality and cross-cultural narratives.
Surreal
Figurative
Abstract Expressionist
Life Studies
Sculpture & Collage
About the artist
Ian Cook studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1968 to 1975, where he won the Hutcheson Drawing Prize and completed a postgraduate year in Fine Art. He was later awarded the Cargill Travelling Scholarship, which enabled him to travel and develop work influenced by Spain and North Africa.Travel has remained central to Cook’s practice. In 1985, supported by an Arts Council bursary, he spent several months in Central Africa, producing a significant body of work rooted in his experience there. Further journeys have taken him to Native American reservations in the northwestern United States, as well as across Central and South America and Mexico, where he explored Pre-Columbian symbolism and contemporary Latin American culture.These influences inform a diverse body of work that blends figurative and surreal elements with mythological and spiritual themes. Cook’s paintings often draw on tribal, historical and cultural references, reinterpreted through a distinctive and expressive visual language.Alongside his studio practice, he has led workshops and educational programmes in both the UK and internationally, including work with indigenous communities in Ecuador and teaching in Wyoming. In 2019, he produced a series of works to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo.Cook has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, including at the Royal Academy and Mall Galleries, London. His work is held in a number of public and private collections, including the BBC, The Fleming Collection and The Kinsey Institute.He continues to develop work exploring myth, spirituality and cross-cultural narratives.
Surreal
Figurative
Abstract Expressionist
Life Studies
Sculpture & Collage
Ian Cook RI RSW RGI
Cook studied at Glasgow School of Art between 1968 – 1975, during which time he completed a year of Post Graduate study in Fine Art and won the Hutcheson Drawing Prize. He was then awarded the Cargill Travelling Scholarship, a major travelling bursary that enabled him to develop research and works from Spanish and North African sources.On receiving an Arts Council bursary, he spent several months in Central Africa in 1985 as a means of furthering his research of different landscapes and cultures, and produced many artworks from his sojourn there. According to natives of transient fishing villages on the Western side of Lake Tanganyika, he was the first white man to visit their community since Livingstone’s time.In 1993, he spent time in the Blackfoot, Sioux and Shoshone Reservations in America’s Northwest, returning to exhibit a number of critically-acclaimed works at the Glasgow Concert Hall.Inspired by pre-Columbian symbolism and contemporary Latin American culture, he has extensively travelled in Central and South America and Mexico, leading to an infusion of tribal and historical elements in his work.Outside of studio-based works, he has participated in learning/culture programmes in North Western Wyoming, taught art to Indigenous children in Ecuador and facilitated a three-day life drawing course at Hospitalfield House. In 2019 he produced a range of visuals to raise awareness of the genocide taking place in Democratic Republic of Congo.
Awards include the Richard Plincke Prize, Mall Galleries, London (2023); the Committee Prize at the RSW Exhibition (2022); Winsor and Newton Award for the Most Outstanding Contribution to the RI Exhibition at the Mall in London (2000); the House for an Art Lover award at the RSW Exhibition (2015); Fellowship of the Glasgow Art Club at the RGI Exhibition (2011).His work has been exhibited across the world including Europe, the Americas and, more locally, at the Royal Academy, Sunday Times Watercolour Exhibition, The Portrait Society, the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour. The Jonathan Ross gallery, Henry Miller Fine Art, Russell Gallery and Catharine Miller Fine Art have all showcased his work in London.Recent exhibitions include: the VIA awards, showcasing Latin American work at the Brazilian Embassy, London; ‘Savages’, a one-man show, focusing on the evils of colonialism at the Lillie Art Gallery, East Dunbartonshire; and 'Urban and Rural Episodes', a one-man exhibition at City Contemporary Art, Perth.His work has been displayed in private collections at Trainload Freight, TSB, BBC, The Kinsey Institute, Indiana State University, The American Equestrian Association, The Museum of Slavery in Liverpool, The Museum of Humour in Bucharest and The Fleming Collection.Publications that have featured his work include: Aldobranti’s In Defence of a Rural Realm; text and artwork based on Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic’; and Dorling Kindersley ‘Watercolour Techniques’ and ‘the Art of Watercolour’.Inspired by his travels and immersion into different cultures, he continues to produce a range of figurative and surrealist works using diverse subjects, and incorporates mythical and spiritual elements into his work.