The Cat Street Gallery is delighted to announce Michael Cook’s first solo show in Asia, CIVILISED. Michael Cook is an award-winning photographer who has worked commercially both in Australia and internationally for over twenty-five years.
Cook was adopted and brought up in a family who, while not of Indigenous descent, were heavily involved in supporting Indigenous rights. “I was raised with a strong understanding of my Aboriginal ancestry thanks to my parents. When I produce art, I feel a stronger connection with my ancestry. This helps me to understand Australian history, in particular, my history.”
His Aboriginal heritage informs and extends his art. Cook’s photographic practice is unusual. He constructs his images in a manner more akin to painting than the traditional photographic studio or documentary model. Instead he begins with an idea, regarding the image as his blank canvas. Photographic layering is then used to build the image to provide aesthetic depth. Also, he characteristically works in photographic series. Unfolding tableaux offer enigmatic narratives which are not prescribed but left open to interpretation.
In CIVILISED, this body of work dresses Aboriginal Australians in the fashions of four European countries that visited Australia before and in the early stages of colonialisation: Spain, The Netherlands,England and France. It asks ‘what makes a person civilised?’ and suggests how different history might have been if those Europeans had realised that the Aborigines were indeed civilised.
Cook’s works are collected extensively throughout Australia and internationally including the National Gallery of Australia, Parliament House, Artbank, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Westpac Corporate Art Collection, National Museum of Australia and The Owen and Wagner Collection of Australia Aboriginal Art (USA).
