RICHARD COOK: WITHOUT A COMPASS

8 Holland Street is thrilled to announce RICHARD COOK: WITHOUT A COMPASS . An exhibition of paintings at 8 Holland Street FLAGSHIP, St James’s Park, London.

These paintings, which are largely drawn from the last ten years, reflect perhaps my preoccupation with walking/being in nature. The images do not represent any topographical viewpoint, but rather manifest something that exists already inside of me. They are given birth through an exact moment in time and location/place, which boundary, conversely, sets them free.

Since wandering the rivers of my childhood growing up, and now my walking on Dartmoor or on the extraordinary coastline of Cornwall, my need has always been to express this powerful and extant inner reality. Memory exists within us as an endless and infinite ocean, and I would say that this is the breeding ground for these paintings. In order to possess any truth or validity the paintings have to emerge untrammelled, and with complete freedom from this world and without any conscious interference from me. Thus the paintings cannot be thought up, but have to be discovered, and through the act of painting a given form that is both unexpected and often unrecognised.

— Richard Cook, June 2025