Irish born artist Liadin Cooke has lived in West Yorkshire since 2000. Her work comes out of a curiosity for the world around her and an interest in the emotional and historical significance of sites and objects.
In her drawings and sculpture, Liadin combines materials like wax, brass and clay, creating work that seems at once timid and bold, delicate and determined. There are often detailed surfaces that simultaneously evoke fragility and resilience alongside an awareness of weight, touch and movement. It is through this relationship between material, idea and personal subjectivity that her highly individual work is rooted.
She has exhibited widely in the UK, Ireland and internationally. Solo shows include exhibitions at New Arts Centre, Roche Court, Huddersfield Art Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Henry Moore Institute in Leeds and PS1 in New York.
“Hollow Earth No. 2 (2017) is one of a series of works about the Jules Verne novel ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’ where the protagonists travel through a volcano on a quest to find the centre of the earth.
Blue-grey Floor (2015) was created in response to a floor that invited touch – making it hard to look where you were going.
Sugar Ring (2006) was made while I was looking at and reading about how tulip viruses made the flowers both more beautiful and more valuable, I wondered do other sweet things have a virus that can do this.”
