Solo Exhibitions
2026 Mary Ryan Gallery, New York
2024 Chini Gallery, Taipei
2020 Sunny Art Centre London
Saul Hay Gallery Manchester
2019 York Art Gallery
2018 Ryan Lee Gallery New York
Saatchi Gallery London
Shandong University, China
2016 Art First London
2015 Hubner and Hubner, Frankfurt, Germany
2014 Art First London
2013 Ryan Lee Gallery, New York
2011 Langgeng Foundation, Jogjakarta, Indonesia
2010 Mary Ryan Gallery, New York
2009 Fine Art Society, London
2007 Today Art Museum, Beijing
Mary Ryan Gallery, New York
2005 Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan
California State University Long Beach
Collections
British Museum
Cleveland Museum USA
Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge
Haugesund Billedgalleri, Norway
Metropolitan Museum of Art New York
Minneapolis Museum of Art
MIMA, Middlesbrough
Nicosia Municipal Art Centre, Cyprus
Today Art Museum Beijing
Victoria and Albert Museum
Yale Center for British Art, USA
Yokohama Museum of Art
York Art Gallery
Group Exhibitions 2026
Contemporary British Painting Prize, Sheffield and London Another World, Frestonian Gallery, London, 2025
John Moores Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, 2024
Paradise Lost The Underground Stream, South Devon, UK 2022 Paper after All, Royal Cambrian Academy Conwy 2020
Recent Acquisitions, York Art Gallery
New Light, Scarborough Art Gallery (and tour) 2019
Sunny Art Prize, London 2018
Layers of Visibility, NiMAC Nicosia
New Light, Tullie House Carlisle
Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, Mall Galleries, London 2017
New Light, Bowes Museum, Co Durham.
Langgeng Foundation Jogjakarta, Indonesia, 2016
Art First London (two people) 2014
John Moores Liverpool
Flow Szechuan Art Academy, Chongqing, China 2013
Graphite GVArt, London
MIMA Middlesbrough 2012
Amalgam, Mary Ryan New York 2011
Dust on the Mirror, ICA Singapore
Drawings for the New Century, Minneapolis Museum of Art, USA Grey, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 2010
Dust on the Mirror, Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, UK 2008
Leaded, Salina Art Gallery, Kansas, USA
Tempo Reale, British School at Rome, Italy, 2006
Until it Makes Sense, Gallery Seventeen, London
Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, Paris, 2005
Yale Centre for British Art USA
Christopher Cook was born in Yorkshire, England, and studied Literature at Exeter University and MA Painting at the Royal College of Art, London. He received an Italian Government scholarship for three years to work in Bologna, where his colour paintings from this period appeared in high-profile exhibitions such as From Bacon to Now at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Eros in Albion at the Casa Masaccio, and solo shows in London.
Two years in India changed his painting approach to a more haptic practice in which sand drawings inspired a switch to monochrome graphite. These works were soon exhibited internationally, especially in the USA through Mary Ryan Gallery, and entered major collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Minneapolis Museum of Art, and Yale Centre for British Art, and in the UK in the British Museum and Fitzwilliam Museum. The ‘graphites’ received major prizes in the UK, including at the prestigious John Moores Liverpool.
Notable solo shows include Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan; Today Art Museum, Beijing; Heidelberger Kunstverein, Germany; and York Art Gallery, UK, in which meditations on Dutch 17th-century still life painting were exhibited alongside masterworks from York’s collection and loans from the National Gallery, London. This theme reemerged during a residency in Taiwan (2023), works from which were exhibited at Chini Gallery, Taipei in 2024. A retrospective of eight exhibitions with Mary Ryan Gallery was held in New York in 2026.
2023 L.L.Contemporary, 'Sunshine and Rain', Toronto, CA
2023 Adah Rose Gallery, 'Carte Blanche', Washington D.C., US
2023 Pragovka Gallery, 'Echo of the Depth in Space', Prague, CZ
2022 Studio West Gallery, 'Now Introducing', London, UK
2022 London Paint Club x Hoxton253, 'Select Pt.1', London, UK
2022 Abstract on Paper, Amart Gallery, Vienna, AT
2022 Unit 1 Gallery, 'Contemporary British Painting Prize 2021', London, UK
2021 Huddersfield Art Gallery, 'Contemporary British Painting Prize 2021', Huddersfield, UK
2021 FiveSparks Arts Centre, 'Mediated Landscapes', Harvard, US
2021 Husk Gallery, 'Panta Rhei', Brussels, BE
2020 Husk Gallery, 'In Arcadia', Brussels, BE
2019 Amart Gallery,'Extension of Reality', Vienna, AT
2019 Medium Gallery, 'Night Walk, Day Sleep', Bratislava, SK
2019 Niche Gallery, 'Room with a View', Tokyo, JP
2019 Star Art Space at Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, 'Muster Actions', Chongqing, CN
2018 Nedbalka Gallery, ‘Painting Year', Bratislava, SK
Awards
2023 Rose Finn-Kelcey Bursary & The Vice Chancellor’s Achievement Scholarship
2023 Shortlist, The Morrison and Foerster Art Prize, London, UK
2022 Shortlist, Now Introducing Prize 2022, London, UK
2021 Shortlist, Contemporary British Painting Prize 2021, London, UK
2016 Painting Prize 2016, VUB Bank Foundation, SK
2015 Shortlist, Painting 2015, VUB Bank Foundation, SK
Residencies
2025 Megafield Gallery, Beijing, CN
2024 Studio West, London, UK
2019 Megafield Gallery, Beijing, CN
2018 Banska St a nica Contemporary, Banska Stiavnica, SK
2018 Egon Schiele Art Centre, Cesky Krumlov, CZ
2016 BankART Studio NYK, Yokohama, JP
Jan Valik
Born in 1987 in Slovakia; lives and works in London, UK
Education
2023 - 2024 MA Painting, Royal College of Arts, London, UK
2020 - 2022 Turps Banana Studio Programme, London, UK
2007 - 2012 MA in Fine Arts, Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Czechia
Solo exhibitions
2026 Koenig Vlk Gallery, ‘At the Edge of Spectre’, Brno, Czechia
2025 Amart Gallery, ‘The Calling’, Vienna, Austria
2024 Suju Gallery, ‘Forest’, Karuizawa, Japan
2023 Amart Gallery, ‘Small Infinities’, Vienna, Austria
2022 L.L. Contemporary, ‘Breakthrough’, Toronto, Canada
2022 Husk Gallery, ‘Shifting Places’, Brussels, Belgium
2021 Amart Gallery, ‘Landscapes’ Vienna, Austria
2020 Husk Gallery, ‘Verge’, Brussels, Belgium
2019 Cin Cin Gallery, ‘Seeing Triple’, Bratislava, Slovakia
2018 Chisou, ‘Inner Weather’, Komono, Japan
2017 Niche Gallery, ‘Plethora and the Quiet World’, Tokyo, Japan
Selected group exhibitions
2026 Florence Trust, ‘Weight in Translation’, London, UK
2026 Hypha HQ, ‘Immemorial’, London, UK
2026 Elias Tsiofas Gallery, ‘Unsacred Terrains’, Thessaloniki, GR
2026 Nedbalka Gallery, ‘Generation XYZ’ , Bratislava, SK
2025 Yorkshire Sculpture Park, ‘Unquiet Landscape’, Sheffield, UK
2025 Xima Gallery, ‘Beyond the Castle’, Hangzhou, CN
2025 Yorkshire Sculpture Park, ‘Unquiet Landscape’, Sheffield, UK
2025 Auto Amor, ‘As It Was’, Kent, UK
2024 Norito Gallery, ‘Moving Stones Gather No Moss’, London, UK
2024 L.L. Contemporary, ‘Both: Inwards and Out There’, Toronto, CA
2024 NoHo Gallery, ‘Hazy Horizons’, London, UK
2024 Amart Gallery, 'Abstract on Paper', Vienna, AT
A believer in the ephemeral, Jan Valik describes his paintings as fluid and fictitious territories moving between perceptual ambiguities and evocation of otherness. Essentially rooted in traditions of both abstract and landscape painting and drawing lifelong inspiration from both Eastern and Western philosophies and their respective insights into the nature of perception, I explore and investigate painting’s complex potential as a multifaceted ecosystem of meanings, marks, and sensations.
True to the painting’s alchemical spirit and principles, the idea of transformation of the intangible into visual and conjured, my paintings traversethe interplay between external environments and internal feelings, creating fluid, evoked spaces and sensed atmospheres emerging from the nature of the medium.
