When Hara Clark and studio HB were approached to design the exhibition and marketing for Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy we jumped at the chance. Cook, who was once named Britain’s most popular painter and whose work is recognisable by wide audiences across the UK, (in fact we think it was the law in the 1980's to have one of her prints pinned on your kitchen cork board!)

 

The exhibition was to reappraise Cook’s significance as a chronicler of everyday life in Britain during a period of tumultuous social, political and economic upheaval from the 1970s until her death in 2008. Her whole point was not just that the ordinary can be extraordinary. It is that the ordinary is extraordinary; that life is amazing, full of laughter and joy and fun. Being alive is precious and fantastical – and we should spend every possible second celebrating it.

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While the exhibition largely took the form of a single gallery hang, our approach was to draw inspiration from Cook’s world to create moments that elevate the experience — moving beyond a conventional hang toward a more immersive and playful encounter with her art. We took key colours from her paintings and drenched the walls with it-including all panels and labels so the arworks popped.

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In Cook’s paintings, the eye is guided through layers of interaction — gestures, glances and expressions drawing the viewer in. We translated this sense of depth into the exhibition design through layers of translucent materials such as voile and gauze.

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The plump, smoothly shaded figures that populate Cook’s paintings suggest a tactile three-dimensionality. We explored this in a restrained way — and introduced a 3d printed sculptural title  which was softly contoured that echoed the rounded, generous forms of her characters. 

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