Born in Tyler, Texas in 1983 and based in New York, Ethan Cook is a process-oriented artist who rethinks the boundaries of traditional painting. Instead of painting his canvases with pigment, he weaves colorful panels of fabric on a four-horse loom, creating abstract, geometric artworks by sewing the woven pieces together. Through this unconventional approach, Cook combines craft, materialism, and minimalism in a harmonious and innovative way.
In Cook’s work, weaving becomes a meditative yet intensely rhythmic process. Each movement, each thread pulled or knot skipped, adds a unique character and makes each work one of a kind. The colored surfaces of his canvases are reminiscent of the color field painting of artists such as Mark Rothko and Kazimir Malevich, embracing abstraction, scale, the logic and beauty of color, and the interplay of structure and chance.
In addition to his canvas works, Cook has also made small-scale works from handmade paper. Regardless of the medium, Cook invites the viewer to perceive, beyond specific themes, the material and the creative process – the presence of the artist’s hand and the aesthetics of a practice that is at once artisanal and industrial.
Ethan Cook is an artist who, in a postmodern era, reminds us that a blank canvas is not only a challenge but also an opportunity – an ode to craft and the subtle transformations of material. His work is a sensual and profound dialogue between the viewer, the colors, and the fabric – an inviting and exciting exploration of tactility in Contemporary Art.
I wanted to take the painting out of painting and put the color into the fabric… this led me to making the canvas
Ethan Cook via De Brock Gallery1
