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.
My painting isn’t about me; it is about us.
My work explores the relationship between memory, landscape and the future, using nostalgia not as sentimentality, but as a form of refuge. I am interested in the way familiar images can provide a sense of belonging while simultaneously carrying us towards something unknown.
Growing up in rural Yorkshire, I developed an enduring sensitivity to expansive landscapes, dramatic skies and the emotional power of place. My work draws on the visual language of nineteenth-century British Romantic landscape painting, particularly its ability to create atmosphere rather than simply describe a scene. I deliberately use familiar, almost nostalgic imagery to create a sense of recognition and ease.
That familiarity is then disrupted.
Geometric forms, lines, voids and luminous structures interrupt the landscape, introducing a sense of tension and uncertainty. These elements reflect the invisible systems that increasingly shape contemporary life: algorithms, automation and artificial intelligence. They suggest a world in which our experience of reality is becoming increasingly shaped by unseen forces.
At the centre of my practice is hope. I am interested in resilience, vulnerability and our continuing desire to find refuge in an increasingly uncertain world.
In a culture increasingly dominated by speed, screens and artificial intelligence, painting offers something different: time, attention and presence. I see the slowness of painting not as a weakness, but as a quiet form of resistance. To stop and look is to reclaim a moment of human attention.
Ultimately, my paintings ask how we navigate the space between what we remember, what we fear and what we hope for.
Our past. Our future. Our need to belong.
EDUCATION
MA (RCA) The Royal College of Art, London
BA (Hons) First Class, Glasgow School of Art
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2026 - Space; Group Show, Liminal Gallery, Margate
2026 - Headlining - Winter, The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle
2026 - Contemporary Istanbul, Pontone Gallery, Istanbul, Türkiye
2026 - Aotearoa Art Fair 2026, Pontone Gallery, Auckland, NZ
2026 - EXPO Chicago 2026, Pontone Gallery, Chicago, USA
2026 - Incandescence; Solo Show, Pontone Gallery, London
2025 - John Moores Painting Prize; The Walker Gallery, Liverpool
2025 - Site Seers; Group Show of Contemporary Landscape Painting. Saul Hay Fine Art; Manchester
2025 - Exile and Return; Celebrating 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Guernsey; St Pierre de Bois, Guernsey
2024 - All Shall Be Well; Solo Exhibition, The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle
2024 - ING Discerning Eye; The Mall Galleries, London
2024 - Ethereal Echoes; Two man show with Andrew Tyzack at Zillah Bell Gallery, Thirsk
2023-24 New Light Touring Prize Exhibition
2023 - ING Discerning Eye; The Mall Galleries, London
2023 - Silent Disco '23 - Mixed Show; curated by Graham Crowley, Wickham Market, Suffolk
2023 - Royal Scottish Academy Summer Exhibition; Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh
2023 - British Contemporary Art 2013-2023, A Decade of Change; Zillah Bell Gallery, Thirsk
2022 - Trinity Buoy Drawing Prize - Short List
2022 - Shore, Lines and Brush Marks; Two woman show - Candie Museum, Guernsey
2022 - Paint Edgy; Contemporary British Painting Show, Ropewalk, Barton
2020 - Deborah Grice Headlining at The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle
2020-21 New Light Touring Prize Exhibition
2019 - Lynn Painter Stainer's Prize Exhibition; The Mall Galleries, London
2018 - Between the Lines; Solo Exhibition, Saul Hay Fine Art, Manchester
2017 - ING Discerning Eye Prize Exhibition; The Mall Galleries, London;
AWARDS
2025 - John Moores Painting Prize Visitors' Choice Award - Walker Gallery, Liverpool
2024 - People's Choice Award - The Ferens Art Gallery, Hull
2022 - People's Choice Award - New Light Exhibition, The Tullie Gallery, Carlisle
2017 - Award for Best Painting from the Midlands, The ING Discerning Eye Prize Exhibition
2017 - The Saul Hay Award for Emerging Artist; New Light Prize Exhibition.
National Pilot’s License CAA
First Prize Folio Society illustration Award The Folio Society
Painter Stainer’s Award for Illustration Royal College of Art
RTZ Travel Scholarship Royal College of Art
Design Bursary for Excellence Glasgow School of Art
Bequest for Excellence in Illustration Glasgow School of Art