Sue Cooke

Sue Cooke is primarily a printmaker whose practice brings together landscape, material, memory and environmental consciousness. Based in Whanganui, she works across monoprint, etching, lithography and collagraph, alongside painting. Her work combines traditional printmaking processes with an ambitious approach to scale, moving between the intimate detail of a leaf or tree and the vast, geological rhythms of the natural world.

Born in Sydney in 1960, Cooke emigrated to New Zealand in 1973 and graduated from the Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury with a Diploma in Fine Arts with Honours in 1985. She studied printmaking under Barry Cleavin and Denise Copland, and in 1984 worked alongside fellow student Marian Maguire as a trainee Master Printer for Ralph Hotere, who became an important influence, mentor and lifelong friend. Her wider influences include Colin McCahon, Henry Moore and Georgia O’Keeffe. Cooke’s practice has developed through sustained periods of observation, travel and research. Her early work established her reputation through powerful, often monochromatic interpretations of the New Zealand landscape. A 1989 study tour through Europe and America expanded her exploration of colour, while a 2006 journey to the Antarctic Peninsula became the catalyst for seven years of work exploring ice, light, scale and the fragility of pristine environments.

Since 2015, Cooke has devoted significant attention to deforestation, regeneration and our changing relationship with the natural world. Research into New Zealand’s indigenous forests has resulted in a substantial body of work examining the cycles of destruction, loss and renewal. At the heart of Cooke’s practice is a fascination with the handmade. Her plates and prints are created through physically demanding, traditional processes, with texture, layering, repetition and the trace of the artist’s hand integral to the work. The result is a richly tactile body of work in which landscape becomes a way of considering memory, time, loss and renewal.