Aj Cooke: Fragmented Place
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Dear Memory,
September 11 - October 3, 2020

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In Conversation with Aj Cooke: Virtual Artist Talk

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Artist Statement
Place is a location, a feeling, and an identity. How we view the world around us, and react to it, is derived by our personal existence - how we think and what we’ve experienced both physically and emotionally. Even though our own realities define our unique spheres, we function as a structured population regardless of all of this difference. I am interested in how we organize our society with constructs that have a shared network of humanity while still remaining bound to our individual certainties.

By altering photographs from various points in my life, I am re-documenting memories and reshaping them based on my current place. These subjective modifications are founded by gained experience as well as critiquing the formal composition from a design perspective - a visual language of color, shape and line. Though I consider this interpretation of information to be very particular as my own perception is offered to others, shared meaning can be achieved through the use of conventions - a code that can be recognized and interpreted by multiple communities.


Artist Biography 
Focusing on Cognitive biology and design language, Aj Cooke’s work explores human epistemology and the contradiction of individual perception within a functioning organized construct by creating visual systems of personal and communal meaning. Currently living in the metro-Detroit area, Cooke earned her MFA in painting from Kendall College of Art & Design of Ferris State University, in Grand Rapids, MI.