Ian Cook

Ian Cook studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1968 to 1975, where he won the Hutcheson Drawing Prize and completed a postgraduate year in Fine Art. He was later awarded the Cargill Travelling Scholarship, which enabled him to travel and develop work influenced by Spain and North Africa.

Travel has remained central to Cook’s practice. In 1985, supported by an Arts Council bursary, he spent several months in Central Africa, producing a significant body of work rooted in his experience there. Further journeys have taken him to Native American reservations in the northwestern United States, as well as across Central and South America and Mexico, where he explored Pre-Columbian symbolism and contemporary Latin American culture.

These influences inform a diverse body of work that blends figurative and surreal elements with mythological and spiritual themes. Cook’s paintings often draw on tribal, historical and cultural references, reinterpreted through a distinctive and expressive visual language.

Alongside his studio practice, he has led workshops and educational programmes in both the UK and internationally, including work with indigenous communities in Ecuador and teaching in Wyoming. In 2019, he produced a series of works to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Cook has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, including at the Royal Academy and Mall Galleries, London. His work is held in a number of public and private collections, including the BBC, The Fleming Collection and The Kinsey Institute.

He continues to develop work exploring myth, spirituality and cross-cultural narratives.