Gabrielle
Cook
About
Naked and Not Ashamed explores the relationship between myself and my spinal surgeon. Having known my spinal surgeon for almost ten years, I wanted my work to reframe my memory of the strange, patriarchal omnipresence of my doctor in my formative years. Throughout our interactions, my surgeon was an eccentric character. He had power over the trajectory of my life, and for this reason, I often couldn’t help but view him as divine. I aimed to reflect this complex relationship in my paintings, focusing on the idea of my surgeon as a god-like figure in my adolescence. At 17, my surgeon removed one of my ribs and used it to fuse my spine. Text in this work dissects and mirrors the bible passage, Genesis 2:21- 25, which describes the creation of woman using the rib of man. By hanging the six panels vertically, I aimed to reference the form of a spine.
Bio
Gabrielle Cook is a third-year painting student at Sydney College of the Arts working predominantly in text-based painting. Much of her work focuses on depicting memory and reframing traumatic memory to exist in new contexts. Drawing on phrases from both widely known and more personal sources, Gabrielle aims to create introspective works that explore the boundaries between text as an object and as a subject.