GW Contemporary is pleased to present As the Sun Lights Our Skin, the debut U.S. solo exhibition by Australian artist Will Cooke, and his first with the gallery.
The exhibition presents a new body of paintings exploring the physical and emotional presence of sunlight. Rather than depicting light directly, Cooke’s works respond to how it moves through space—how it flows, settles, and is felt.
Each painting is created on aluminum, which Cooke treats as both surface and collaborator, and built through an intensive process of 30–40 finely sprayed layers of acrylic. Multiple colors form subtle gradients and richly textured surfaces, while areas of exposed metal reflect ambient light. This gradual accumulation allows color to hover, deepen, and shift, mirroring the time-based experience of light itself.
As viewers move through the gallery, the paintings shift quietly from changing viewpoints. Their luminous surfaces invite reflection on how color, light, and materiality shape mood, perception, and presence.
Cooke’s practice engages the perceptual legacy of the California Light and Space movement, emphasizing attentiveness and light as material. Favoring subtle optical shifts over immersive spectacle, he creates works that feel both contemporary and timeless—refined, precise, and quietly profound.
As the Sun Lights Our Skin offers a contemplative encounter with light as structure, sensation, and emotional ground. The exhibition’s title points to a shared human experience: light as a grounding, collective presence.
Cooke has been commissioned by internationally recognized institutions including Tiffany & Co. and the City of Sydney. His public mural As One Door Closes, Another Opens was selected as a finalist for the Sir John Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. He has exhibited widely throughout Australia and internationally, and his work is held in public and private collections worldwide.
