An exhibition featuring the recent work of Aj Cooke.

JUNE 23 – AUGUST 13, 2017

Artist Bio:

Focusing on cognitive biology and design language, Aj Cooke’s work explores human epistemology and the contradiction of individual perception within a functioning organized construct by creating visual systems of personal and communal meaning. Having earned her MFA in painting from Kendall College of Art & Design of Ferris State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Cooke currently lives and works in the Metro-Detroit area, exhibiting locally and nationally.

Artist Statement:

Through the use of conventions – a code that can be recognized and interpreted by multiple communities, shared meaning can be created by a common sign system, like visual language. This act of looking is neither completely objective nor subjective due to our cognitive processes sifting through visual information, as well as categorizing the data into personal meaning drawn from memory and experience. Yet our need to compulsively find pattern and organize information – even in our own ways, is a connection that can be exploited and epistemologically portrayed by an image.

Remnants consists of drawings and paintings on panel(s) that reanimate visual components used in past site-specific installations. The new compositions reflect back to the informational site in terms of physical elements (data), yet maintain their own autonomy as original design. By housing the remnants outside of the original site, the data is also reframed much like a memory or recollection is fragmented together to create new meaning.