'The
origination for much of my recent work is rooted partially in a
kind of fascination for the nature of water, which began formally,
most probably in the 'water' drawings and paintings for my 'Elements'
series of 1998.
An ongoing sub-theme is a visual consideration, making use of colour
relationships, of the tension between nature and technology, hinted
at in my extensive series, 'Divided', of 1999-2000. These related
subjects seem to combine in the 'Bridge' paintings, mostly dating
from 2002, although having evolved earlier. Two different qualities
of paint are brought together, restrained in the tectonic 'bridge'
and volatile in its environment. Fluid, drenching arrangements are
opposed to what gradually developed into a severe geometric structure,
a simple, spanning form that joins and divides, a symbol both of
'man's triumph over nature' and of unification.
In these and subsequent paintings I have used a layering technique
which permits a view of earlier spatial complexes in the compositions
and that alludes to the notion that there may be many additional
dimensions beyond or parallel to the supposed three or four, that
are unseen or incensed by human beings.
Calligraphy, especially oriental painting and writing, is an art
that has interested me since my youth and gesture has informed my
painting almost throughout my life, but positively since the late
1960s. Thus, much of the handling and imagery in my work up to the
present has a generally cursive rhythm.
Guten Tag #1. Over the organic convolutions - that may equate with
forms in nature or the physiology of the human body - the painting
Guten Tag. ('tag', ['tagging'] being graffiti as well as 'day'),
has a diagonal swathe of black 'writing', like a further erasure
or imposition that hopefully bears, in a different context, the
kind of urgency and visual presence, not always defacement, that
I have experienced everywhere in the streets of South London or
Liverpool or Hong Kong - a seamless onward flow like life, one thing
superseding another.'
Maurice Cockrill was born in Hartlepool, County Durham in 1936,
he studied painting at evening classes, and in 1960 was accepted
by Wrexham Art School to study painting full-time.
Maurice spent the next twenty years living and teaching in Liverpool,
where he became well known as a realist and was funded by the Arts
Council. In 1982 he moved to London, showing solo many times with
Bernard Jacobson Gallery. He was the subject of a retrospective
exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool in 1995.
Maurice Cockrill was on the Hanging Committee for the Royal Academy's
2001 Summer Exhibition.
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independent
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georgian
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central 
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