James Cook: Large Landscape Paintings @ Davis Dominguez Gallery

In the cavernous space that is the Davis Dominguez Gallery currently is on display over a dozen large landscape oil paintings by artist James Cook. Most of them are square in shape, measuring roughly six feel of either side.  The subject matter is the outdoors, the wilderness...but there's something unusual about these pictures that is not immediately obvious. 

"Redhorse Cattails" by James Cook

At first glance, they look like large painted illustrations of mountains and forests, painted in a style that summons up how artists tended to portray the outdoors in magazines from the 1950's or 1960's: They're very competent paintings, but the colors and the way they're painted have a sort of old "illustration" look about them.  There are only a few colors in these paintings, and neutral colors (such as browns and grays) predominate. The compositions tend to be organized around simple lines that cut the canvas into simple divisions: usually an "S" or a "V"-like shape.  Those broad compositional lines end up taking the form of a river, or of a fallen tree.  Otherwise, these pictures have a very boxy look to them, because the details of his paintings contain a lot of vertical and horizontal lines, which tends to tame the wild quality of his subject matter.

These are massive paintings, so there's no way that Cook painted these from life (ala the "plein aire" approach).  These are paintings based on reference photos. Although the pictures appear to be very realistic in appearance, and his shapes hard-edged, closer examination reveals that there's actually a lot of loose painting going on here. I can imagine Cook painting very loosely and quickly, as suggested by many of the loose and gestural paint strokes distributed throughout the middle layers of his paintings.

"Beaver Creek, Fall"

 There is very little air space in these pictures; it's all right there, in your face. And one other thing: there is very little depth of space in these pictures.  Cook's paintings portray scenes of Nature as a wall; there is no path to follow back into the painting; the trees are lined up to block your view, as are the rocks. Though this pictures are huge, their space is cramped. Though Nature is filled with color, Cook's chosen to tamp it down to two or three, and some grey tones. This is "Nature illustration" on a grand scale, but his focus is on a private little overlooked piece of it. Supersized little details of a Nature walk, photographed and redelivered as huge wall pieces,  painted with a palette knife and a rubber spatula. The paintings here in this exhibit are big and competent...but very safe. If fact, they feel as though they are a barrier: no expansive vistas, no glorious skyscapes. This is the great outdoors, literally, in your face.