WILLIAM COOK
HUMANSCAPES
Over the past few years, I’ve become increasingly aware of the importance of human interaction and what is lost when we pull away from our communities, as many of us felt forced to while living through social and political unrest and a worldwide pandemic. It led me to contemplate exactly what new forms of existence and perception are born from interacting with one another.
Through my Humanscapes series of prints, I’ve sought to depict in simplistic and literal form what may occur when individuals overlap. I invite the viewer to make what they will of what they see, hear, feel, and experience.
When one life intersects with another, a new world of possibility and potential is brought into being.
LANDSCAPES
Growing up between the mountains and the sea in the Pacific Northwest, my environment has played a very large role in shaping my views. All my life I’ve lived in or near the forest and the water’s edge. In doing so I’ve witnessed not only its beauty but also its decline through deforestation and climate change. I’m ever aware of the landscape that surrounds me.
My landscapes attempt to portray fragments of places I’ve seen and the feelings they’ve left behind.
Every place has a feeling, and every feeling has a place.
PROCESS
While traveling, hiking, or even in my backyard, I try to keep my sketch book close at hand. Often, I take down notes in the form of small sketches that help me later reference a particular subject matter and/or feelings I discern from the landscape.
Once I land on an image, I build up oil-based inks layer by layer, onto a sheet of plexiglass. I manipulate each layer by wiping, scraping, spraying, painting, or anything that seems to suit the image, then transfer the image onto paper either by baren (often a spoon) or etching press.
I generally begin with a sketch, but always make sure to listen and watch how the piece develops with each layer, often winding up with an image very different from the sketch it originated from. I try to let the print tell me where it wants to go, rather than where I think it should.
