Brett Cook " David Wojnarowicz" Painting

Brett Cook " David Wojnarowicz" Painting. Spray enamel paint, Pen, and acrylic on non woven media. Measures 43" x 60". Signed verso.

Brett Cook (Dizney) is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and healer who uses creative practices to transform outer and inner worlds of being. Raised in San Diego California in a family of public school educators, he began spray painting in high school. In the mid1980’s he was further influenced by aspects of graffiti art and community art while studying zoology, education, and fine art at the University of California, Berkeley. In the 1990’s, Cook moved to New York City and showed extensively in galleries, museums and made scores of permissioned and non-permissioned public projects. Today, Cook’s objects feature painting, drawing, photography, and elaborate installations to share pluralistic stories that reinvent representation. His public projects typically involve community workshops featuring arts-integrated pedagogy, along with music, performance, and food to create a fluid boundary between art making, daily life, and healing. He has received numerous awards, including the Lehman Brady Visiting Professorship at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Richard C. Diebenkorn Fellowship at the San Francisco Art Institute. Recognized for a history of socially relevant, community engaged projects, Brett was selected as cultural ambassador to Nigeria as part of the U.S. Department of State's 2012 smARTpower Initiative and was a 2014 A Blade of Grass Fellow for Socially Engaged Art.  His work is in private and public collections including the Smithsonian/National Portrait Gallery, the Walker Art Center, and Harvard University.   www.brett-cook.com