“…celebrate the peaceful unity of the night,
the precious value isolation holds for creative expression.”
Nigel Cooke
Pace Gallery
Nigel Cooke – Midnights
Digital Studio Visit – Online Exhibition
Via Zoom, Pace Gallery presented
the solo online exhibition, until June 2, of Nigel Cooke: Midnights
with a digital studio visit moderated by Pace Gallery’s Curatorial Director Mark Beasley.
Midnights comprises a series of 6 new works on paper that build on the
artist’s recent presentation at Pace Gallery in New York, which reflect
the artist’s continued exploration of abstraction during quarantine over the
past months.
Nigel Cooke
Copyright - Nigel
Cooke - Courtesy Pace Gallery
These large-scale drawings, composed with dark hues of blue and black,
were made after twilight while Cooke was in isolation at his studio in Canterbury,
UK this March and April. As an artist, Cooke shares that he is “naturally
self-isolating,” but has taken this extra step of working in the night to “fall
out of step with the schedule of the local world one extra degree,” a state
which “feels more recognizable as the usual conditions for art making.”
Nigel Cooke –
Midnight – Islands
“Midnight blue has become the
core dark light of these new paintings on paper, weaving together an acceptance
of what is, and a hope for what might come in a single unbroken gesture. It
speaks to me of the darkest point before the return of the light. Made after
twilight, these works are in a sense an inversion of the previous way of
working, the same approach flipped for a parallel but unfamiliar moment.”
Nigel Cooke
The artist notes that creating at night allows for “a space for deeper
thought” and the works in this series “celebrate the peaceful unity of the
night, the precious value isolation holds for creative expression.”
Copyright - Nigel
Cooke - Courtesy Pace Gallery
Nigel Cooke –
Midnight – Horizon
Mark Beasley
Pace Gallery - Curatorial
Director
The Studio
All proceeds from the first sale will be
donated to the NHS Charities Together, to benefit patients and
healthcare workers affected by
COVID-19
Unless otherwise stated all photos are Zoom
screenshots