Adrian Cook

BIOGRAPHY

Adrian Cook is an award-winning portrait and documentary photographer and has worked for major advertising agencies and magazines around the world for the last 25 years. His work has been exhibited worldwide and has picked up awards at Cannes and D&AD amongst others. In Australia he has been a finalist in Head On, Art & About, The Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize and the National Portrait prize.

 In early 2015, uninspired by the predictability and monotony of digital photography, Adrian began taking photographs using the wet plate collodion process in an effort to recreate the aesthetic qualities and characteristics lost with the demise of film.

STATEMENT

In contrast to the manipulation and transience of digital imagery, his practice exploits the unpredictability of this complex alchemical process to produce unique handmade metal and glass plates. These works seek to recall both the restraint and resonance of early tintypes, crafted to honour occasion and to memorialise. This selection showcases portraits, still life and landscapes. The portraits are a mix of personal work and commissions through his long association with the Sydney Writers Festival. Many of the still life are from an ongoing series exploring pop culture ephemera in timeless unique tintypes. Most of the landscapes record the NSW South Coast, including several from the series ‘Currowan New Year’, marking the impact of the unprecedented and pivotal 2020 bushfire season. The series explores the aftermath of the monster blaze that burned almost half a million hectares in 74 days. Some plates were crafted on location using a mobile darkroom, capturing moments in the Conjola forest in the days after the fire passed. Others feature serene constructed landscapes, assembled from the burnt and baked native flora found strewn across the local beaches.

Adrian Cook CV