The Cooper Gallery

A recipe written in old fashioned handwriting. The writing is white and is presented on a blue background – like an architect’s blueprint. Reading a recipe, conjures in the imagination the smells and sounds of cooking and the taste of each ingredient. This recipe is for fried pork with sweet and sour sauce. This piece raises the question of why we record recipes; is it to remind ourselves? Or maybe its to share them with others. Food, especially home cooked food and recipes passed down through families, can be very personal. The taste of a favourite dish can evoke so many memories and feelings.

This photograph can almost be split into two halves, the top half shows a painting of the last supper mounted to the wall. In front of the painting, in the bottom half of the image, three people can be seen sat around a table having tea. In the foreground, there’s the back of the heads of an older couple, the man has white hair and the woman is wearing a hat. In between them, sat opposite, there’s a second woman wearing a wide brimmed hat and spooning sugar into her tea. This photograph captures a particular occasion, in Hebdon Bridge, whilst also raising wider discussions around the nature of eating together and the symbolism that this evokes, from the last supper through to simply having tea with friends.

This collection of six glass fruits uses texture and colour to show the markings and lustre of fruit. The plum orange and lemon have markings on them to depict the texture on the real life fruits while the apples and peppers have a high shine polish finish. Through the accurate representation of the textures you can imagine what it would feel like to handle, eat or cook the fruits. The high gloss finish on the apple is especially effective as it triggers the same feelings as when you bite into a fresh crisp juicy apple

On a dark stone table sits a pile of fruit featuring, amongst others, pears and plumbs and an array of seasonal bounty including an open horse chestnut revealing its conker inside. The fruit looks freshly picked as it still has its leaves attached. The colours used on the display are bright and vibrant and this should be an appetising display of late summer or early autumn fruits and yet, when we look closely, we can see that everything is riddles with insects. There’s a snail in the bottom left corner crawling down the edge of the table, a wasp crawling over the pear in the centre, a caterpillar on one of the leaves just below it. This is a Dutch painting. Often in Dutch works such as this, the paintings are filled with elements of symbolism. The insects crawling cross the fruit may have other meanings.

This pencil sketch of an elderly man sitting on a chair with a small round pub table in front of him. He wears traditional northern working-class clothing including a flat cap and a jacket. Whilst the whole image has sketchy line work, there’s significantly more detail used for the man. The pencil lines are also heavier which show that the man is the focus of the image. In front of the man is a bottle that we can assume he is about to drink from.

Painting depicting a little girl with blonde hair and a blue and red dress stealing oranges from a table set up with a coffee pot and sugar dish. On the table is a white tablecloth laid over a patterned one. Behind her there’s a large chair which highlights how small the girl is. The girl is in the centre of the picture and can be seen with one arm outstretched grabbing an orange, the other hand is holding a folded-up apron that she’s using to smuggle other oranges in. The oranges in the apron are falling out and one has rolled onto the floor. In the background, on the left-hand side, a woman can be seen entering the room with her hand raised as if she is about to tell the girl off. Her outfit suggests that she is probably a maid. Oranges at this time would have been quite a luxury item and so the girl stealing them would be the equivalent to a child sneakily taking luxury chocolates or cakes today.

A high contrast image featuring 20 black and white photographs of human faces against a black background. The portraits are displayed in a grid format with 4 horizontal rows of 5. The portraits are of men, women and children and display a range of ages, from a baby through to elderly people. This is quite an unsettling image, as the faces are dissociated from bodies, backgrounds, or context, and merely stare out at you from the darkness.

See the little creature in the giant cage. David Shrigley. Marker pen on paper

A simple sketchy line drawing in black ink of a large cage with a small black creature inside. The cage is in the shape of a cube with vertical and horizontal lines. The black creature is sat on the ground in the middle of the cage looking out at the viewer. The creature resembles a cat with its long tail, pointed ears and big eyes. The writing at the top of the sketch reads see the little creature in the giant cage rattling about like a pip in a drum. We are similar I think it and I until my parents return from their holiday in Cyprus. The giant cage compared to the small creature coupled with the text suggests the feeling of being alone while others are out of the house and possibly the feeling of going stir crazy

Oil on panel. This oil painting features two figures in the centre a young woman dressed in ivory blue is sat with a sketch book resting on her lap and behind her a man is resting his hand on the back of her chair looking down at what she is drawing and gesturing to the bust on the left that she seems to be sketching from. From this setup it can be seen that he is her teacher. The light is falling on and illuminating the woman more than the man which suggests she is the focal point of the image how she is learning to draw using observation is the prominent feature. The strong rich blue the woman is wearing is not an insignificant choice by the artist, this particular shade of blue was created from an especially expensive pigment and therefore represents wealth and opulence. In addition this colour is also commonly used in the robes worn by the Virgin Mary in paintings which in this case could also be representative of the woman's youth and innocence

Oil acrylic on hard board. This landscape depicts a group of men watching pigeons flying. They are stood on top of a hill which is seen in the left hand side of the painting. Just in front of the hill on the left hand side there's a small collection of buildings which resemble traditional northern houses with sloped roofs and prominent chimneys. On the left hand side are six men stood and sat in a group looking towards the top right hand side of the picture they are stood closer to the viewer than the houses. On the right hand side there is a man stood with his back to the viewer also looking in the same direction, to the right of him another house can be seen. On the centre of the image, at the forefront is a man that we can see from the waist up, he appears to be one of the focal points of the painting. He is wearing a dark jacket and traditional flat cap, under his right arm is a box with a pigeon inside, he is also looking up to the right hand corner In this top right hand corner where all the men are looking a bird, likely to be a pigeon is flying in the sky. The colours in this image are quite dark and muted and give the impression of it being an overcast day. The brush strokes on this piece of work are quite rough and don't feature fine detail