Christopher Cook: Liquid Graphites 2006-2025

February 26 – March 21, 2026

Mary Ryan Gallery is pleased to announce Liquid Graphites 2006–2025, an exhibition of distinctive monochrome works by Christopher Cook (b. 1959) charting two decades, and six solo exhibitions, with the gallery.

Cook’s medium combines various grades of graphite powder with resin and other solvents in a painting practice that sometimes appears close to drawing, and at other times seems to reference early daguerreotypes. He explains his fascination with graphite: “as material, it is one of three stable forms of pure carbon, lying in structural terms halfway between soot and diamond, and offering soot’s earthy, elemental quality along with a lustre suggestive of its more precious relative.”

Without making studies, Cook applies the liquid graphite directly on sheets of paper or aluminum, and works it from dark to light using both traditional and unconventional implements. His approach owes something to surrealist practices, where spontaneity and chance influence the evolving subject, and often the image may be erased and repainted several times, which he says “can feel like rehearsing a performance – learning one’s lines, perfecting the voice and gesture – in preparation for the opening night.” The improvisational method means that themes addressed over this twenty-year period span a wide emotional and intellectual range – from detailed, complex Baroque interiors to ethereal, gestural waterfalls.

Cook’s innovative works attracted attention from the outset, and were selected for major shows in Europe, the Far East, and the United States, and received several prestigious awards in the UK. Along with his six exhibitions with the gallery, other major solo shows include Chini Gallery, Taiwan (2024); York City Art Gallery, UK (2020); Nanjing Arts Institute, China (2018); Hubner & Hubner, Frankfurt, Germany (2015); Langgeng Foundation, Indonesia (2011); Today Art Museum, China (2007); Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan (2005); University of Memphis Museum of Art, TN (2004); Towner Art Gallery, UK (2003); Heidelberger Kunstverein, Germany (2001); and Breda Museum, Netherlands (2000).