Exiting the Labyrinth

A path toward the exit—one, then several, then countless.

Her work seems to be calmly resolving something—if life is a labyrinth, and if this labyrinth has an exit.

Hesse and Mahler appear concrete but are in fact abstract; Chris Cook's paintings, on the other hand, look abstract but are truly concrete.

She herself says the images come from childhood memories of Hong Kong, travels through Southeast Asia, and the dawn skies over Beijing in recent years. Even before hearing her say this, the first time I saw those subtly shifting geometric forms, I immediately sensed something—an indescribable something—brushing gently across my heart like a breeze. It was like being alone, waking at a certain hour, by yourself.

I talked with Chris for an evening—in English, occasionally in Chinese. About her life, her creative process, about all kinds of things… I don't quite remember what she looks like, how she wore her hair, what she was dressed in—but I clearly remember she had on blue eyeshadow. And for some reason, an image of her studio appears in my mind: the top floor of an old building, a slanted wooden ceiling, light streaming in through a skylight. Though her studio probably isn't like this. Or perhaps—it should be?

On the surface, she seems more British: polite, smiling, rational. But surrounding her is something unmistakable, an unnameable subtropical foreignness. I intuitively felt she spoke Cantonese; later, it was confirmed. What's interesting is that her work carries the same quality. On the visible surface—whether form or color—it is utterly abstract, yet deep within the work flows an energy rich with detail: cool, warm, damp, fragrant—the taste of caramel, the humid, suffocating air that parasitic plants crave, roasted peanuts, lemongrass steeping in sweet-and-sour sauce, jasmine oil, incense offered in prayer, the faint crackle of embers in charcoal.

Such a subtropical dream, rendered in clear detail, would miss itself entirely—like every failed film adaptation of Marguerite Duras's books. Yet in Chris's works—those signs, those nearly-ciphers—they live.

With minimal tones, she achieves nearly infinite variation. Those calm patches of color are, in truth, unstable. They exist at the threshold of balance, and Chris constantly pushes them closer to tipping. In this process, she and the viewer together experience light and darkness, stillness and motion, heaviness and lightness.

Sincere artistic creation, in the end, reveals thinking—looking inward, looking outward, and the feeling within that looking. Chris's work is like a blade so thin it barely exists, slicing through the passage of time, gathering countless cross-sections. Quietly, she preserves them.

Each frame is a question.

Each frame is an answer.

走出迷宫

一个通向出口的路径，数个，无数个。

她的作品好像在平静地解决什么问题——如果生命是个迷宫，如果这个迷宫有出口。

黑塞和马勒的作品是貌似具象其实抽象，那Chris的画可以说看起来抽象其实具象。

她自己说画面来自童年的香港回忆、东南亚的旅途还有近年北京拂晓的天空。即使没有听到她这样说之前，第一次看到那些细腻变化的几何形体，我马上感到一种气息，难以描述的什么，如微风般拂过心头。那就像你一个人，在某一个时间独自醒来。

和Chris聊了一晚上，用英语，偶尔用中文。关于她的生活她的创作方式，关于各种事情……我不太记得她长什么样子，头发是什么样子，穿了什么衣服，但很清楚的记得她涂了蓝色眼影，而且不知道为什么我脑海中出现她画室的样子——老房子顶楼的那种木制斜屋顶，从天窗放进光线。虽然她的画室应该不是这样，或者说，应该是这样？

从表面来看她更是一个英国人，礼貌的，微笑着的，理性的。但是围绕着她有种很明显的、难于言说的亚热带异域感。我直觉地认为她讲广东话，后来证明确实如此。有意思的是她的作品也具有同样特质。从眼睛可看到的表层来说，无论形态或颜色都极度抽象，然而作品深层流动的能量却有着丰富的细节：冷的暖的潮湿的有香气的——焦糖的味道，寄生植物所需要的潮热逼仄的空气，烤花生，香茅草入到酸甜的酱汁里，茉莉花精油，拜神的供香，炭火爆发细微的噼啪声。这种亚热带的梦境，如果用清晰的细节进行描绘，往往去之千里，像Marguerite Duras的书被改编成电影，无一成功。反而在Chris这些符号或暗语一般的作品中，它们栩栩如生。

用极简的色调，实现几近无穷的变化，那些冷静的色块，其实是不稳定的。它们处在平衡的临界点，Chris在不停地把它们推得离失衡更近。在这个过程中，她和观众一起体会到光明与黑暗、动与静、沉重与轻盈。

真诚的艺术创作，其实展示的是思考、向内和向外的观察、在这观察中的感受。Chris的作品就像用一把薄到不存在的刀，剖开时间的流逝，得到无数切片，她默默把这些剖面留存下来。

每一帧都是问题，每一帧都是答案。

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Chris Cook is a visual artist based in London and currently teaching in Beijing. She holds a First-Class Honours degree in Fine Art from De Montfort University, Leicester, an MA in Fine Art from the Royal Academy Schools in London, and an MSc in Translation from Imperial College London. Her work explores form, colour perception, and the interaction of colour and light, while also addressing themes of opposition and interrelatedness - such as balance and instability, darkness and light, movement and stillness, evoking a quiet sense of equilibrium and harmony.

克里斯·库克是一位驻伦敦的视觉艺术家，目前在北京任教。她拥有莱斯特德蒙福特大学美术专业一等荣誉学位、伦敦皇家艺术学院美术硕士学位，以及伦敦帝国理工学院翻译学硕士学位。其创作探索形态、色彩感知以及色彩与光线的互动关系，同时探讨对立与关联的主题——如平衡与不稳定、黑暗与光明、运动与静止，从而唤起一种静谧的平衡感与和谐感。