Carrie Cook

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Carrie Cook grew up in Abilene, Texas, and got her MFA in painting at the University of Houston, Texas. Following graduation, she, together with a partner who was studying poetry at UC Irvine, moved to Los Angeles.

I wasn’t planning to move from Texas, and I had never been to LA before, but I quickly became very excited about the art community here.

Texas and California are quite different. What were your first impressions of LA, coming from Texas?
I love to talk about this because they’re both so different, yet so similar: huge personalities with big economies that have similar industries in terms of agriculture, entertainment, and energy. Being on the border, the influence of Mexican culture is also a major shared position between the two states. In many ways the move from Texas to LA was very fluid, there is such a strong connection between the whole Southwestern geographic area. Also, the dependence on a car – driving from LA to Texas and back is epic.

Regarding the art world, LA is a bigger scene and I think there is an openness and generosity because of that, which I was surprised to find. There’s a very casual hospitality culture in Texas that is deep in my bones. But there was a different kind of generosity and openness in LA, given how many artists there are here and how many opportunities. People that I viewed as way ahead in their careers, whose work I admired, were much more accessible than I expected. I still find that really inspiring.

Is this Southwestern culture present in your work?
Some of my paintings have to do with the architecture, or design, of the car: seeing the landscape through the curved windows whilst being inside the vehicle. Seeing the sky, landscape, and city from that distance – which can feel epic, like a movie – is part of Southwestern culture present in my work.

Food and beverages seem to play a significant role in your artwork. The way you render the food is very reminiscent to a still life image.
I’m always taking photos of uncomposed still lifes – things that aren’t set up as a still life but happen organically or passively. Through my own photo documentation of those moments, I am finding ones that are a little strange or off. I also look for patterns, like a color that repeats, and I try to play that up in a painting or a series of paintings, so there is this rhythm that communicates something deeper.

How did you develop these themes of food and organic still lifes?
The use of symbolism throughout art history is so prominent, like the cup and the bread in The Last Supper, all mirroring the body of Christ. That has been a foundational idea. I grew up in a very religious context after my mom, who was going through a personal crisis, converted to evangelical Christianity when I was six or seven. Entering adolescence, I became very curious to develop my own spiritual life and learn about different ways of coping and, eventually, my art education overlapped with theology.

How do you translate your spirituality into your works?
I practice and study different forms of meditation and have worked with some different spiritual teachers that have helped me find ways to really clear my mind, which lets an image come forward. Sometimes an emotional problem gets figured out in the painting, too. It’s so helpful to have that outlet. I honestly would have given up as an artist if I didn’t have this spiritual leading that kept art so central. Having a studio, I also keep a lot of source material around for the work, like photographs, collage works, drawings, and writing. There is something about looking at that repeatedly and then going into a meditative state that allows for something to bubble up from that bank of reference material.

Photos by Daniel Sahlberg.