Gallery first to present Cook’s new series, on loan from Hong Kong

24 August 2016

Michael Cook is a Brisbane-based photo-media artist of Bidjara heritage. The Tweed Regional Gallery will be the first public gallery to host the full suite of Michael Cook’s latest photographic series entitled Mother, which opens today.

This emotionally engaging series explores a universal theme that is crucial to the wellbeing of all. The love or absence of a mother is paramount to the development and future of each child the world over.

“Mother is a journey through 13 images of a woman in a deserted Australian landscape,” Gallery Director, Susi Muddiman OAM, said. “These are powerful and evocative images that possess an arrested stillness. Each of them speaks to something dramatic, and has a sense of loss or regret. The experience or the idea of loss and longing is something we can all connect to in some way,” Ms Muddiman said.

The ‘mother’ is always alone, her baby absent, although evidence of a child remains in the empty pram, abandoned toys on the hopscotch court, the slackness of the skipping rope.

Michael Cook has tackled subjects from the political to the historical since 2009. In Mother we see his most intensely personal work to date. While these images speak directly and poetically to Australia’s Stolen Generation, they also speak to a universal experience of disconnection between mother and child.

“I create artwork about Indigenous issues, past and present, about how the past relates to the present and, eventually, moulds the future. I’m not sure whether I really need to belong anywhere. Put simply, I’m a person of mixed ancestry – some of which is Indigenous. I look at the big picture, I am Australian, I tell my stories to Australians of all races and also to those beyond our shores. I am a part of the human race,” Cook said.

This exhibition is presented to coincide with the 2016 Local Government Aboriginal Network Conference hosted by Tweed Shire Council from 24 to 26 August 2016.

Mother will complemented by an engaging series of programs and events including:

Exhibition launch event

Friday 16 September, 6pm – 8pm. Free: no bookings required. Join us for the launch of Michael Cook’s exhibition Mother along with Resolution: new Indigenous photomedia, a travelling exhibition from the National Gallery of Australia.

Artist Talk

Sunday 23 October, 2pm. Free: no bookings required. Join Michael Cook in conversation with Gallery Director Susi Muddiman OAM as he reflects on Mother – a new body of work that unravels the artist’s personal history and explores broader universal ideas of motherhood, belonging and identity.

Student Enrichment Day

Tuesday 25 October, 9.45am – 2.30pm, $10 per student. Bookings essential by phoning the Gallery on

(02) 6670 2790, Wednesday – Sunday 10am – 5pm. Artist Michael Cook will share his expertise in digital image-making and post-production techniques with students as part of this one-day intensive focused on contemporary photomedia practice. (Bookings by school representatives only; for year 10 – 12 students only; limited to three students per school).

Also available, to secondary school teachers, is an education resource featuring an essay by Rhoda Roberts. This resource is available for downloading from the Gallery’s website at http://artgallery.tweed.nsw.gov.au/ResourcesAndActivities

The Tweed Regional Gallery acknowledges the generous support of Hong Kong art collectors Alan Conder and Alan Pigott in presenting this exhibition.

Michael Cook’s Mother will be on display at the Gallery from 24 August to Sunday 11 December 2016.

Downloads

Photo 1(JPG, 80KB)

Caption: Image credit: MICHAEL COOK Mother (Pram) AP, 2016, inkjet print on paper, 120 x 180cm, collection of Alan Conder and Alan Pigott © Michael Cook