Featured Artist Carrie Cook

Beautifully rendered, artist Carrie Cook’s animal portraits portray her subjects as individuals filled with personality and complexity. Learn more about this artist and her work by visiting her website.

 

 

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t drawing, painting, and photographing animals. When pushed, I say I’m a wildlife artist, but I actually see myself as a portrait artist. I just happen to paint portraits of non-human animals.

 

 

I’m interested in getting an animal’s story and painting the individual, for it is surely as individuals that they see themselves.

 

 

Always an artist as a child, I was unable to see fine art as a “responsible” adult career. So I spent decades working “real jobs.” I learned a lot. But I was always taking art courses. Art on the side. Art as a hobby. Art as a way to earn a few extra dollars for pet portraits.

 

 

Finally, in my forties, I set aside a small studio in my house, and after a few years of largely self-taught nose to the grindstone work, I’m proud to say that I’m now a Signature Member of the Society of Animal Artists, which extends membership to less than 500 artists worldwide.

 

 

I’ve been a graphic designer in New York City, a student of Disney artists in Los Angeles, and a teacher of art to mildly interested middle schoolers in Colorado.

 

 

But it as the former head of graphic design at the Dallas Zoo and Children’s Aquarium, and the discomfort I felt about animals in captivity, that led me down my current artistic path. Being a vegetarian helps, too.

 

 

I’ve been deeply involved in organizations such as Artists for Conservation and Artists Against Extinction. The animals I’ve painted may be endangered, marginalized, or used by humans for food, entertainment, clothing, etc.

 

 

Unfortunately, the list is endless, and there is no shortage of inspiration.

 

 

I’ve won numerous awards, including a Society of Animal Artists Medal of Excellence. My work has been exhibited at the San Diego Museum of Natural History, The Houston Museum of Nature and Science, The Wildlife Experience in Colorado, Grouse Mountain Resort and Wildlife Refuge in Vancouver, the Hiram Blauvelt Wildlife Museum in New Jersey, Arizona’s Sonoran Desert Museum, Miami’s Art Basel, and the Nature in Art Museum in England among other venues.

 

 

A portion of profits from paintings is donated to charities that fight for animal rights and/or fight the good fight to keep wildlife wild.

 

Artist Carrie Cook invites you to follow her on Instagram.

 

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