Lot 120 Barrie Cooke

Barrie Cooke HRHA 1934-2013 Slower Dance- Forest Floor (1976) Mixed media on board, 43 1/2'' x 20'' , Bone box 5'' x 20'' x 7.5'', signed, inscribed and dated 1976 verso. Illustrated: Barrie Cooke, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Published 2011, plate 22. Acquired: Adams, 2008. Following in the footsteps of Matisse, Picasso and Miró, Cooke turns to the physicality of his explorations- the sculptural reality of the jungle. Cooke declares ' I have always imagined process. Heat,rain, sun, dark, all forming, all adjusting, all competing' .Slow Dance Forest Floor takes its title from John Montague's poem sequence A Slow Dance 1975. Peat and PVA evolve into a spongy carpet of humus and roots. A tangle of rattan and under growth , embellished with termites and exotic flowers writhe in their hothouse environment. Overhead, but still below the canopy, the primordial beauty of this rainforest counter-world corresponds with the painting's irregular surface.