Artist Reception A.F. Cook

This show is a kind of survey of work completed in the past couple of years, with some older pieces mixed in. In addition to Martha’s Vineyard landscapes, a long time theme I come back to periodically, in the past year I began to expand into more abstracted color in several views of New York City from a train window. It’s been a fun tangent, allowing me to develop new visual language for buildings and trees. I am also currently working on a series of urban landscapes of the Boston area, where I have lived on and off my entire life. In recent years I turned to portraits, initially indulging in nostalgic images drawn from family snapshots, then moving into general portraits of people whose style intrigued me. I am open to taking on portrait commissions.

Lastly, I have once more returned to places and subjects literally “close to home,” in my portraits of floral bouquets and interiors. Particularly against the backdrop of troubling developments in our world, I seek to honor joy, playfulness, and the transcendence of less happy realities through color. My “freedom” here is meant to offer a world of shared respite with others.