Mike Cooke: Thunder Head and Rainbow Face

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The Blue Oyster Gallery's last exhibition for 2008 will be a solo show of the work by Dunedin artist, Mike Cooke, titled  "Thunder Head and Rainbow Face".

Cooke's large bold  acrylic works have a film strip quality, the influences are very obviously modern visual culture (especially Japanese manga) skateboard graphics, Michel Gondry's music videos and America's west coast graffiti, but Cooke is very determined that they are mere triggers for the viewers interpretation.

"The pictures I paint portray characters in a sparse and surreal world" Cooke says.

Using a particular visual language Mike Cooke attempts to illustrate the unexplainable. Much like a strange dream his painted works don't necessarily have a lucid meaning or communication, but can be interpreted by the viewer on their own terms.

Mike Cooke graduated in 2004 having been awarded The Derivan prize in 2003

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