the gallery will be open during regular business hours (Tu - Su, 12pm - 6pm). social distancing and masks are required for those who have yet to complete their covid-19 vaccinations.

virtual first wednesday opening reception: august 4th at 6:30pm

Anita Cooke 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 a 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.

“I use the term ‘Dimensional Patterning’ to describe the building up of raised bas-relief surfaces in my work through the making, compiling, composing, and assembling of similar elements that are repeated in a quasi-ordered, patterned way. Large acrylic-painted canvases are cut into strips that are then pierced, cut, frayed, folded, torn, sewn and glued together into an array of loosely structured order. In my current body of work, the strips are positioned with their edges facing out. These edges often have machine-created knots sewn directly on them numbering in the hundreds. These separate parts are amassed in multiples, which are then assembled, arranged and adhered to a backing.

In this series of works titled ‘Edge Works,’ varied structured elements are stacked, rolled and layered many stories high in laminated bands or tiers that allow for a confluence of the haphazard and the planned. I am concerned with notions about energy, order and chaos and what is often an unseen or hidden interior world. I often refer to these works as core samples, to borrow a term from scientific geologic exploration, that suggests that these works are perhaps just tiny slices, veins, cross-sections or samplings of some micro or macro whole that also have an ambiguity as to how they originated. I am interested in ‘what is on the inside’- and in what that interior core structure might look like or reveal. The desire to look within, behind, and underneath; to study the interior, and to question where a thing came from is paramount to human curiosity. Within the realm of this exposed core, there is hopefully revealed some essence or spirit and something of interest that invites meditation, contemplation and visual exploration.” -Cooke

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. 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 is currently working 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 Audra Kohout, Hye Yeon Nam, & Thomas Neff. All works from these artists are on view, free of charge, during normal gallery hours (12 - 6 p.m., Tue - Sun) from August 3-26, 2021.