Mike Cooke

Mike studied Fine Art (Painting) at Liverpool University. He spent  35 years in teaching, including a few years as a Chief Moderator for GCSE. He eventually became Head of Arts Faculty and Senior Teacher in a Cheshire High School. Throughout his teaching career he continued to paint and exhibit. He now paints full-time from his home in Cheshire.

Mike have been fortunate to travel extensively, including much of Europe and South-East Asia. He makes studies and new work on these visits and often exhibits.

His work is to be found in private collections in the UK, Portugal and Hong Kong.

Landscape is my principal obsession as a painter. I am anxious to be patient, allowing time for the landscape to form a dialogue with me. As the saying goes ‘sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits’.

Scotland has a particularly strong calling for me (I have family living in the far north-east) and I take every opportunity to spend time working in its unique and challenging landscape.

I constantly return to Tarbet Ness.  Time after time I find fresh stimuli, something to excite. This north-facing bay strikes a chord, with its layers of textures, changing colours and pockets of ‘significant objects’.