Timothy Cook

Timothy Cook began painting in Milikapiti on Melville Island in the late 1990s. Renowned artists Freda Warlapinni and Kitty Kantilla provided important early influences on his practice.

Cook is widely celebrated for drawing a classical style of Tiwi painting into dialogue with his own individual take on Tiwi visual tradition and history. In his work, iconographic representations of Tiwi ceremony, in particular the once-annual ceremony known as the Kulama, are positioned in relation to the Catholic cruciform—emblematic of the influence of the missions that held sway on the islands for much of the twentieth century. His paintings on canvas and paper present evidence of a specific intercultural heritage.

December 2013Timothy Cook began painting in Milikapiti on Melville Island in the late 1990s. Renowned artists Freda Warlapinni and Kitty Kantilla provided important early influences on his practice.

Cook is widely celebrated for drawing a classical style of Tiwi painting into dialogue with his own individual take on Tiwi visual tradition and history. In his work, iconographic representations of Tiwi ceremony, in particular the once-annual ceremony known as the Kulama, are positioned in relation to the Catholic cruciform—emblematic of the influence of the missions that held sway on the islands for much of the twentieth century. His paintings on canvas and paper present evidence of a specific intercultural heritage.

December 2013

Artworks — Exhibitions