"Models of Interconnectedness," by Artist-in-Residence Brett Cook

Brett Cook, Healing Our Families, Building True Community Project, Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA, 2005

February 3, 2016 – February 28, 2016

Wednesdays–Sundays, 1–5 pm
de Young | Kimball Education Gallery/Artist Studio
Reception Saturday, February 27, 2–5 pm: Join us in celebrating the artist’s residency with light refreshments

With Models of Interconnectedness, Brett Cook invites museum visitors to experience multidisciplinary works as vehicles for social engagement and personal transformation. Cook presents original drawings from his newly published Clouds in a Teacup: A Mindful Journey and Coloring Book (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 2015), created with global spiritual leader Thich Nhat Hanh, as the starting points for a selection of imaginative projects. Circling the gallery are artifacts and multimedia installations that illuminate community actions. In a practice that takes its model from the building of loving communities, participants are welcomed into a collaborative environment to contribute to artworks that promote ease. Through contemplative, creative activities, Cook provides tactile, dialogical opportunities for recognizing our uniqueness and interconnectedness.

Brett Cook is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and healer who uses creative practices to transform outer and inner worlds of being. Cook’s projects feature paintings, drawings, photographs, and elaborate installations that pluralistically reinvent representation. His community workshops typically dissolve the boundaries between art making, daily life, and healing, featuring arts-integrated pedagogy, music, performance, and food. Among Cook’s numerous honors are the Lehman Brady Visiting Professorship at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; the Richard C. Diebenkorn Fellowship at the San Francisco Art Institute; a 2014 inaugural A Blade of Grass Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art; and his selection as a cultural ambassador to Nigeria as part of the US Department of State's 2012 smARTpower Initiative. He is currently a Community Fellow with the UC Berkeley Institute of Urban and Regional Development, and visiting professor in Community Arts at CCA. His work is in private and public collections including the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution, the Walker Art Center,
The Studio Museum of Harlem and Harvard University.

Image: Brett Cook, Healing Our Families, Building True Community Project, Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA, 2005

The Artist Studio program is a part of FAMSF’s Cultural Encounters initiative designed to attract new and diverse audiences to the Museums and provide exposure to emerging artists. This program is made possible with major support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services' Museums for America. Supported in part by Genuus

This article was copied from the DeYoung/FAMSF website. I hope to see this exhibit and perhaps, if brave, I might even attend the reception for him. What a fascinating approach to art! Inspirational!!!