There are absences, but there ...

There are absences, but there are also presences. It's about how painting can evolve its own abstractions. I didn't know the painting was going to be about that, but it has to have that journey; I have to learn something, I have to end up somewhere I didn't expect to be, otherwise, I don't think it's painting.
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 Nigel Cooke

Quotes from the same author

Small thoughts grow into a picture. It may suggest an individual or it may suggest a place, but generally the painting's job is to work that [idea] into an abstract proposition that is completely removed from the starting point.
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 Nigel Cooke
There are certain times when a painting accelerates beyond you, and you have to try and understand and catch up with it.
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 Nigel Cooke
The paintings don't exist outside themselves. There's no lead photograph off the internet or anything like that. It all comes from my mind and it's a bit like a little movie each time - how do I get the props, the setting, the time of day, the light, the action.
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 Nigel Cooke