Darlene Cole

Lake (wild)

2019

Childhood, a reoccurring theme in Darlene Cole’s work, is represented by prepubescent girls and boys, engaged in some type of action. Without adult supervision, these activities confer on Cole’s children an adult-like aura, empowering them. The artist cites Neil Postman’s 1982 book about the decline in innocence in American culture The Disappearance of Childhood as a text that informs her work. In it, Postman argues that communications technology, such as the invention of the television and later, the Internet, contributed to children losing their innocence, thus transforming them into young adults. A source of inspiration for Cole are the works of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of English painters, poets and critics, founded in 1848. They studied nature attentively, employed vivid colours and depicted unconventional-looking women. Just like in Pre-Raphaelite works, the girls in Cole’s paintings embody enigma, distance, and beauty. The past, in general, is a great source of inspiration for the artist. Cole’s cottage, or ‘artist’s retreat’ as she calls it, was built at the beginning of the 20th century. Since she kept all the original furniture and linens intact, the cottage, on the side of a lake, seems to belong to the past. Nature, another omnipresent theme in Cole’s work, is in many works represented by flowers, such as pink David Austin roses...

"I am an experimental painter. I have been working on my craft since 1996. I start work with a conceptual point of entry and then work intuitively, in dialogue with the work. The art...

On this little pool where the sunbeams lie, This tawny gold ring where the shadows die, God doth enamel the blue of His sky. Through the scented dark when the night wind sighs, ...

Rather than re-creating a literal landscape on canvas or paper, I aim to express its essence in a rich and complex form of delicately painted organic subjects that float and trail ac...