Jan Murphy Gallery is pleased to present ‘Individuation’ the new exhibition by Michael Cook.
Michael Cook’s images have, for over ten years, considered Australian history and its intersection with his own biography, tracing the culture of pre-colonial times imbued with the promise of a different future. With Individuation (named for the term coined by psychologist Carl Jung which describes the process of developing an authentic individuality), it is contextualised with Cook’s deepening personal interest in what urban dwellers really need. His luxuriously beautiful – and Balenciaga-studded – imagery probes these drivers, also central to the social and environmental difficulties Western societies face globally. It taps into the knowledges Indigenous societies possessed pre-colonisation, and sums up what Cook, now mid-life, has learned to apply in his own life to achieve greater authenticity.
In 2022, Michael Cook won the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award and the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography People’s Choice Award and was also a finalist in the Bowness Photography Prize. Cook has exhibited extensively, nationally and internationally including at the British Museum, London, UK; Fondation Opal, Switzerland; the Musee d’ethnographie de Geneve, Switzerland; National Gallery of Singapore; AAMU Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art, The Netherlands; Musee de la Civilisation, Quebec, Canada. His artworks are held in all major Australian collections, and in significant international collections.
Image credit details: Michael Cook, ‘Persona’, 2024-25, archival pigment print on Hahnemühle 310 gsm photo rag paper, various sizes.
