Emma cc Cook:
Dibbler Stick
James Castle:
Select Works
April 8–May 13, 2023
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 8 from 1-4pm
Adams and Ollman is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new paintings and sculptures by Emma cc Cook with a selection of historical works on paper by self-taught artist James Castle. The rural American West has long been a subject of artistic exploration and site of cultural production, reflecting broad discourses surrounding identity, history, environment, and erasure. Both Cook and Castle depict this charged landscape from different time periods and vantage points, revealing striking parallels and marked distinctions. This special exhibition will be on view at the gallery April 8 through May 13, 2023.
For Dibbler Stick, Cook approaches her subject via robust world-building. Central to the presentation is a large cinematic painting, The wonderful company, Pittsburg, CA, 94565, that reveals an eerily beautiful cascade of indistinct crops—hypnotic, oppressive, and void of humans or habitation—that stretches as far as the eye can see. In dialogue with the painting are sculptural works made from solid walnut that resemble farm implements or tools, but are rendered as smooth, aesthetic abstractions that reference mid-century design. Toggling between the past and present, the familiar and the unknown, beauty and dread, absurd and banal, Cook’s works call to mind Americana and craft traditions, as well as the polymorphous sculptures of H.C. Westermann. Other smaller paintings incorporate the aesthetic of narrative modalities like film and novels, drawing attention to the ways in which individual and collective memory collide to shape history and geography, and ultimately, the present.
Inspired by scientific agricultural analyses and innovations that would develop throughout the early to mid-20th century and have reaching effects on both the landscape and sociocultural norms, Cook’s theatrical presentation draws attention to the cross-pollination of the domestic and the industrial, the cultural and the scientific, the aesthetic and the functional. She shows us that the gimmickry of form belies its use, and vice versa, while authority, in the form of scientific studies, capital investment, and the continued impact of Manifest Destiny, marshals the ambiguity of form and value to its own ends.
Born profoundly deaf and believed never to have learned to read, write, or sign, James Castle spent his lifetime making art on his family's farms in Garden Valley, Idaho. Creating sophisticated drawings, books, and sculptures from humble materials such as discarded envelopes, matchboxes, twine, and soot, Castle produced a complex body of work that is not only deeply personal, as it intimately documents the artist's life and surroundings, but also provides the viewer with a fascinating glimpse into rural American life and landscape of the last century. A selection of landscapes, farm scenes and political cartoons drawn with soot and spit will be on view.
Emma cc Cook (b. 1989, Minneapolis, MN; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) graduated with a BFA in painting from University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, and studied at the Angel Academy in Florence, Italy. Select residencies include New York School of the Arts at Vytacil, NY and Campos de Gutierrez in Medellin, Colombia. Cook is a recipient of the MSAB grant, the Carter Prize in Painting and the Gay M. Grossman Memorial Scholarship.
James Castle (b. 1899, Garden Valley, ID-d. 1977, Boise, ID) has been the subject of solo exhibitions at The Drawing Center, New York, NY; Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID; The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, Ireland; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota, MN. James Castle: A Retrospective, a major survey of Castle’s work, was organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA and traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago, IL and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, University of California, Berkeley, CA. Castle's work is included in major museum collections throughout the U.S., including the American Folk Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, the Boise Art Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago.
Works
Emma cc Cook
Pick a Pickle IV, 2023
ink on paper, walnut, museum glass
48 1/2h x 32w x 3d in
123.19h x 81.28w x 7.62d cm
EC202303
Emma cc Cook
Chilly dilly III, 2021
oil, acrylic, upholstery, walnut
44 1/4h x 24 1/2w x 1 3/4d in
112.39h x 62.23w x 4.45d cm
EC202107
Emma cc Cook
Watering II, 2023
oil, acrylic, upholstery, walnut
6h x 4w x 1 1/2d in
15.24h x 10.16w x 3.81d cm
EC202301
Emma cc Cook
Watering IV, 2023
oil, acrylic, upholstery, walnut
6h x 4w x 1 1/2d in
15.24h x 10.16w x 3.81d cm
EC202302
Emma cc Cook
Button bean I, 2023
walnut, oil, acrylic, upholstery
57h x 43w x 5d in
144.78h x 109.22w x 6.03d cm
EC202306
Emma cc Cook
Button bean II, 2023
walnut, oil, acrylic, upholstery
57h x 43w x 5d in
106.68h x 142.24w x 7.62d cm
EC202307
Emma cc Cook
The wonderful company, Pittsburg, CA, 94565, 2023
oil, acrylic, upholstery, walnut
84h x 140w x 2d in
213.36h x 355.60w x 5.08d cm
EC202304
Emma cc Cook
Pommel, pumble, 2023
walnut, steel
38 1/2h x 41w x 20d in
97.79h x 104.14w x 50.80d cm
EC202308
Emma cc Cook
Dibbler stick, 2023
oil, acrylic, upholstery, walnut
56 3/4h x 40 3/4w x 1 3/4d in
144.15h x 103.50w x 4.45d cm
EC202310
James Castle
Untitled (Figures with horse cart, patterns), n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
5 1/2h x 8 1/2w in
13.97h x 21.59w cm
JCas 748
James Castle
Untitled (Landscape with barn and trees), n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
6 3/8h x 8 7/8w in
16.19h x 22.54w cm
JCas 753
James Castle
Untitled (blue dream house with trees), n.d.
found paper, colored pulp
7 3/4h x 10 1/4w in
19.68h x 26.04w cm
JCas 74
James Castle
Untitled (Political Cartoon), n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
9 3/8h x 7 1/16w in
23.81h x 17.94w cm
JCas 730
James Castle
Untitled (Political cartoon), n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
10 7/8h x 9w in
27.62h x 22.86w cm
JCas 731
James Castle
Untitled (Self portrait with friend), n.d.
soot on found paper
4 7/8h x 6w in
12.38h x 15.24w cm
JCas 802
James Castle
Untitled (Pram, double-sided), n.d.
soot on found paper
8h x 10w in
20.32h x 25.40w cm
JCAS 805
James Castle
Untitled, n.d.
soot and spit on found paper
4 1/2h x 2 1/4w in
11.43h x 5.71w cm
JCas 623
James Castle
Untitled (Shed with sawhorse/shed), n.d.
soot and saliva on found paper
5 1/2h x 7 3/8w in
13.97h x 18.73w cm
JCas 678
