Artist Lauren Cook’s focus has been to preserve and celebrate the rich history and beauty of her rural roots, featuring views from her family farm in Michigan. With her recent series, “Into Arcadia: Rural Scenes from a Heartland,” Cook acknowledges the inevitability of change brought on by the decline of family farming, the encroachment of suburbia, and other imposing circumstances of
modern life. These forces are moving the American rural experience from reality to a mental construct. By rendering these idyllic but disappearing pastoral settings such as Passing Storm, she seems to transfer the images into personal spiritual icons that have universal appeal. Cook lives and works in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She chairs the Visual Arts Department and teaches for an independent upper
school, and is currently pursuing her Master of Arts degree in art education at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Cook is active as an independent curator, and also as an ardent advocate of art education, serving as executive board member and chair of the Arts in Education Committee of the Arts and Humanities Council of
Montgomery County, Maryland.
Website
http://laurencook.com
