NATURAL PIGMENT PAINTINGS ON CANVAS

JANE COOK  /  Stepping Into The River

Mineral, earth, and plant pigment paintings

I paint in conversation with natural pigments gathered from around New Mexico, France and Italy.
Rather than a portrait of nature, I want the painting to be an expression of the energy, form, movement,  beauty, and vulnerability
found in the natural world. 

I have an improvisational approach to painting. I begin without preconceived ideas and allow the process to guide me.
What I enjoy most is the unpredictability and mystery of the ways natural pigments interact.
Gradually form emerges as I push water and pigment around the canvas, layer upon layer watching color and gesture
spread across canvas, transforming each other to inform an image that feels vital and alive.

The earth is my muse, always beyond our knowing and control.

I began to paint 60 years ago, influenced by New York artists such as Rothko, Franz Kline, and Rauschenberg,
who, freed from the portrayal of objects, concerned themselves with the visceral expression of physicality and spirit.
Over the past two decades I’ve drawn inspiration from the Asian Zenga “splash” painters to develop my own visual language. 
I use large brushes, rags, splatter, scrapers, brooms, and spatulas and occasionally other media such as gypsum, tar, and inks

A painting is complete when it breathes, revealing the process, and creating a space into which the eye can wander,
explore the sensations that arise from allowing yourself to experience both formlessness and form.

EARTH ARIA SERIES (2019)  (#1 & #2)



AUTUMN MESA (2019)