SANTA FE, NM.- David Richard Gallery is presenting “Camino Real,” a selection of gouache and charcoal works on paper by Michael Cook that were inspired by pavement surfaces while traveling the roads of New Mexico. The exhibition is being presented July 2 - July 27, 2013.

Michael Cook’s art making practice broadly explores abstraction and visual perception in a variety of media and from diverse perspectives. More specifically, the “Camino Real” series mirrors road surfaces with pebbled textures, swirling and random patterns of tar repair, cracks and random marks. Cook then overlays these literal representations with abstractions consisting of line drawings evocative of a map or path, as well as doodles and text as though they were part of a journal. Individual works seem to locate a specific place, but collectively, they actually represent a long journey by the artist consisting of many long bike rides on the roads of New Mexico. These journeys provide Cook with the opportunity to contemplate the complexities of various landscapes, not of literal geographical representations, but of the more abstract social, political and cultural landscapes and how the literal can be a metaphor for the abstract.

Michael Cook has had more than 20 individual exhibitions and his work has been included in numerous group shows in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cambridge and New York. His artwork has been extensively reviewed and included in many publications, private collections and the permanent collections of The New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York), Museum of Modern Art (New York), San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art and The Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, among others. Cook is a respected educator and lecturer and has held faculty positions at University of Illinois, University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco Art institute. Currently, Cook is a Professor of Art at the University of New Mexico. He lives and works in the East Mountains outside Albuquerque.

David Richard Gallery specializes in post-war abstract art including Abstract Expressionism, Color Field, geometric and hard-edge painting, Op, Pop, Minimalism, Feminism and conceptualism in a variety of media. Featuring both historic and contemporary artwork, the gallery represents many established artists who were part of important art historical movements and tendencies that occurred during the 1950s through the 1980s on both the east and west coasts. The gallery also represents artist estates, emerging artists and offers secondary market works.