Christopher Cook: a chance encounter on the way down

An essay on images made in liquid graphite by the English artist Christopher Cook, published to accompany an exhibition at Art First, London. I examine (with reference to diverse pictorial traditions, from Baroque to Symbolist) the role of social as well as pictorial contradiction in these intense works, many of which suggest agriculture and landscapes that are being irrigated, and make the claim that they achieve a position of neither withdrawal nor indifference in the face of landscapes and spaces damaged by globalisation, and are also attentive to new forms and spatial experiences that can emerge in this context.