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P.J.Crook's pictures are immediately recognisable by their painted frames. Her images spill out from the canvas, continuing onto the surrounding wood and enticing the viewer into her world. Painted with a surrealist touch, her scenes have a haunting quality. The figures seem frozen in time, caught at a moment of intrigue and deep in their own thoughts.
Crook never plans her pictures and starts with little idea of what will ultimately evolve. "I rely very much on my own intuition." she says. Working from memories and subconscious, she becomes totally involved in her work and sometimes continues right through the night. The paintings themselves are usually set after dark, lit by a lamp which appears in the picture and casts sharp shadows over the action. Her choice of colours, often pastel blue-greens and pinks, gives a mysterious quality to her work. Often she includes a person who is simply watching, a spectator in her world. With a surrealist's sense of humour, she adds mirrors or 'paintings within paintings'. The pictures have a haunting atmosphere, suggesting conspiracy and ominous events, Crook's world seems like a stage, with the characters frozen in a three dimensional space. There is a timeless quality and they are not set in a particular era. "My paintings hold many secrets" she says
Martin Bailey "Galleries"
THE OUTSIDER, oil on canvas 46x70 inches 1994
Ever since Hogarth there have been British artists who have reflected on life as it is really lived, but viewed from the grotesque side. In the twentieth century this has taken on an added intensity one might call expressionist in the work of artists like Stanley Spencer, William Roberts and Carel Weight. As in their work, so in Crook's, there is a feeling that something odd lies just beneath the surface: these ordinary people going about their ordinary business are somehow set apart, irradiated by a strange otherworldly light; for all their ordinariness, they are marching to a different drummer. And in fact, despite her almost defiant Britishness, it is not by chance that she has worked so much with French galleries and is so highly valued abroad. The strangeness in her works may also recall a very different order of strangeness, that of Surrealists like the great Belgian Delvaux, master of moonlit mystery. Crook's paintings have the unexpectedness of real life and the hallucinatory clarity of a dream. The art has excellent connections, but finally it stands on its own feet and confidently possesses its own personal world.
John Russell Taylor "The Times"
P.J.Crook is a member of the Royal West of England Academy & the Manchester Academy of Fine Art
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THEO WADDINGTON FINE ART Inc. Boca Raton, Florida, 2000
THEO WADDINGTON FINE ART, London: 1998;
MONTPELIER SANDELSON, London: 1994; 1995; 1996
BARRY FRIEDMAN LTD New York. Art Chicago 1998
NANCY POOLE'S STUDIO, Toronto: 1998, 2000
GALERIE ALAIN BLONDEL, Paris:1991; 1993; 1995; 1997; 1999
BRIAN SINFIELD Compton Cassey: 1997; 1999
ROYAL WEST OF ENGLAND ACADEMY: 1997
112 GREENE STREET New York: 1989
CHELTENHAM ART GALLERY & MUSEUMS: 1986
PORTAL GALLERY London: 1980-1994
1996 - Touring Retrospective Exhibition of works from 1980 - 1995.
CHELTENHAM ART GALLERY & MUSEUMS
ORIEL GALLERY, THEATR CLWYD, Mold
MUSEE PAUL VALERY, Séte
RYE ART GALLERY
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ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS: since 1978
ROYAL WEST OF ENGLAND ACADEMY: since 1978
(first prize 1984; elected ARWA 1988,RWA 1993)
ROYAL BATH & WEST OPEN: 1978 (first prize)
WORLD OF NEWSPAPERS, Sotheby's, RA, 1982 (prizewinner)
CHELTENHAM GROUP: since 1983 (purchase prize 1983, first prize 1990)
TOLLY COBBOLD/EASTERN ARTS OPEN: 1985
ATHENA INTERNATIONAL ARTS AWARDS OPEN: 1985/87
FIVE GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTISTS Cheltenham Festival: 1985
JOHN PLAYER PORTRAIT AWARD EXHIBITION National Portrait Gallery 1986
SMALL PICTURES Salisbury: 1986 (prizewinner)
BRITISH FIGURATIVE PAINTING SINCE 1945 British Council tour of the Far East 1988/89
FRIENDS OF CAREL WEIGHT Arts Club, London: 1991
SOUTH WEST OPEN: 1992 (Highly commended)
CONTEMPORARY ICONS, Royal Albert Memorial Museum Exeter: 1992
THE GIFT OF LIFE London: 1993 (prizewinner)
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT EXHIBITION, London: 1993 (purchase prize)
RECLAIMING THE MADONNA Lincoln Museum & Art Gallery tour 1993/94
MURS PEINTS Mairie de Paris: 1995
SALON DES INDEPENDENTS Paris: 1995
DIE KRAFT DER BILDER Realismus der Gegenwart Berlin: 1996
CONTEMPORARY PAINTINGS FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION - Imperial War Museum, London: 1996
CONTEMPORARY BRITISH PAINTING, Toronto: 1996
WOMWN BEYOND BORDERS, London: 2000
PICTURES OF INNOCENCE, Leicestershire Museums Service, 2000
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P J CROOK - Peintures
éditeur Frédéric Daussy, éditions ramsay, Paris 1993
ISBN 2-84041-007-9
P J CROOK - a retrospective, 1980 - 1995
Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museums 1996 ISBN 0 905157 22 2
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FIAC, Paris; Salon de Mars, Paris; New York; Chicago; Miami; Palm Beach; Strasbourg; London; Bath; Osaka; Basel; Gent; Cologne; San Francisco
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PAINTINGS IN PERMENANT COLLECTIONS
Imperial War Museum, London
Morohashi Museum of Modern Art, Fukushima, Japan
City of Paris
Royal West of England Academy
Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museums
Dept. of Transport, London
J.P. Morgan Inc, London
El Mundo, Madrid
Park Cities People, Dallas
Sagitta plc, London
Ralli Institute, Geneva
University of Pennsylvania
London Business School
Leicestershire Museums
Cheltenham Racecourse
Discipline Global Mobile
King Crimson
Longleat House
Gloucester Royal Infirmary
Ha'avetz, Tel-Aviv
Allied Domecq plc, London
Daniel Owen Community Centre, Mold
Canadian Museum of Animal Art
Templeton Asset Management, Toronto
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