Artist of the Month November 2008

Jeannine Cook

Townsend, GA

Tanzanian by birth, European by heritage, British-American by nationality, Jeannine Cook is one of a small number of artists worldwide who specialize in silverpoint drawing. Her luminous watercolor paintings complement these shimmering drawings executed in silver. Cook's work is in many public collections in the United States and Europe. Jeannine is a member of The Art List through Women's Caucus for the Arts partnership program.

How and when did you start creating art?

I studied art at school in Kenya, but at the age of 12, was told that I had to give it up to concentrate on "serious academic subjects"! Not until I was in my late 30s, now married and living in New York, did I start painting in watercolours on a trip to the Carribean. On my return home, I asked an artist friend, Jeanne Nelson Szabo, her opinion on what I had done. The upshot was she briefly taught me the Nicolaides method of drawing, set me on my way, and within two months, I had my first solo exhibit - to my astonishment. The passion of art has never left me since.

What media and genres do you work in?

My main love is silverpoint drawing, a shimmering, subtle medium that dates from Renaissance times and earlier. The fine lines and elegantly restrained tonal range of silverpoint lend themselves to high key subjects, from flowers to bones, to landscapes of my beloved salt marshes here in Georgia and the mighty trees that edge the marshes. Watercolours are my complement to silverpoint - luminous brilliant colours seem appropriate to celebrate nature in multiple aspects, realistic and abstract. I also tend, on occasion, to use mixed watercolour and silverpoint. Pen and ink, as well as graphite, are other media I delight in using when the subject matter seems to dictate it. Since a great deal of my art is exhibited to advocate on behalf of the environment, I have been doing plein air work in all these media.

Who or what are your influences?

Having haunted the museums of Europe as a young woman, long before I became a professional artist, I seem to have absorbed many influences from Renaissance times on. However, I have always believed that I needed to allow my own voice to develop as an artist, so I tend to walk my own path when creating art.

Nature's Voids, a silverpoint drawing.. I was working on a Georgia barrier island, Ossabaw, as Artist in Residence. It is an incredibly beautiful island, protected and gloriously wild. I found this salt-burnished dead red cedar tree, half-buried in the sands. It talked to me of tenacity, endurance, beauty in death as well as in life, of the opportunities even in seeming voids we experience in life... the ultimate elegance of balance in life for each of us to strive for...

Describe your creative process?

Something just calls out - hits me - especially when I am working plein air. I do a rough quick drawing to analyse it, check composition, learn how the object/landscape/whatever... is put together. If I plan to do a watercolour, I then draw the piece carefully. Once satisfied, I apply watercolours very loosely and freely, layer by layer, tightening up as I work along, covering the whole paper and trying to unite the piece by repeated use of colour in different parts... I use a limited palette of pigments, mostly transparent. I try to finish the piece in situ, returning the next day at the same time to find similar light if necessary. Silverpoint drawings, on the other hand, require a prepared surface on smooth paper before a drawing can start. I then begin drawing, almost organically, and work steadily over the whole drawing. Since one cannot achieve punchy darks in silverpoint, you have to return again and again to the same place when a layer of silver has oxidised. It becomes a very meditative process, but highly addictive!

What are you working on currently?

I am preparing background information for a series of silverpoint drawings and watercolours that I will be doing while Artist in Resident at Les Amis de la Grande Vigne, Dinan, Brittany, in France for October. I want to link the coast of Georgia, rich in seafood/oysters and tidal scenes, to that of Brittany, with its famed oysterbeds and huge differentials in tides. I also hope to work on landscapes that evoke not only Brittany itself but June 1940 when my father was among the last British troops to leave France through St. Nazaire after the fall of France in World War II.

What are your near/long term goals as an artist?

The overarching goal is, of course, to improve and grow as an artist, both as a watercolourist and as a draughtswoman. Beyond that, I hope to produce work that speaks to people about nature's incredibly complex, but oh so fragile, beauties for which, implicitly, we need to be good stewards.

Where can people view/purchase your work (gallery, website, etc)?

After working with many galleries which came and went, I decided that it was much more delightful to meet people who come to my studio or who contact me directly through my website.

Additional Information