Artist Showcase: Joe Cook

Almost six years ago, artist Joe Cook appeared on kdoutsiderart for the first time. In this artist showcase, Joe shares his new body of work. Joe says:

This new body of work is a direct continuation of my previous illustration work. My brief was to create a diverse range of characters in a far away land, living a life of heroic adventure and intrigue. I took direct influence from Henry Matisse, amongst others. The shapes and colours he created in his cut-out era feel exotic and foreign to me and I tried to employ those curves and free flowing lines where I could. Similarly, where there is action in my drawings there is also naivety and an unapologetic (David Shrigley-like?) quality to the movement. I scoured photos from the internet and national geographic back editions for real life examples of everyday folk lost in their endeavours in far tropical lands. Ultimately I tried to be honest in what I saw and how I adapted that to paper. The drawings are primarily pencil and ink and don’t always follow the tried and tested rules on how illustrations should look, feel and move.