• Quotes and Reviews

Old pictures, early photographs, have become fetish objects. They often speak to a time where repression shared a room with wild decadence, but with hard demarcations. Restrictive, decorative clothing evokes bondage -- once known as The English Vice -- without ever speaking its name.

Steve Cook's ALTERNITY fetishises the fetish. Careful digital manipulation places these proper ladies and gentlemen in a parallel world; a hyperreal interzone of rubber, piercings and tattoos.
Warren Ellis 2002 - www.artbomb.net

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"Steven Cook is an artist who works with digital media and photography. His latest series of work ALTERNITY, manifests possible pasts in mendacious but startlingly believable photographic images.

These alternate narratives are strangely familiar, yet have a sense of disquiet as histories collide and memories blur. We understand the photograph's adventure derived from the co-presence of apparently irredeemably separate elements, but we also believe in their conflation. This is no dismissal of culture, merely a refusal to accept what others have said. In an age where notions of the importance of time dominate all areas of cultural exchange, there is inevitably a sense of anticipation and not a little neurosis. Cook seems to suggest that things aren't always what they seem and the past is maybe not what we thought it was. Is it possible to change the past, to make it different by seeing it through post-modern eyes?"
Roy Voss 1908

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"Nothing beats the space-suited Kennedy, which is one of the most profound, mysterious and plain fucking cool things I've ever seen!"
Grant Morrison 2001

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Look closely...
Every picture tells a story.

Death of a President bears the date 04.14.65. Could this signify that the picture was taken using modern photographic equipment on April 14, 1865? The poster in the shop window advertises the theatrical performance that Abraham Lincoln was attending the night he was assassinated. How is the mysterious lady in the image connected to this fateful event?

Jeanne d'Arc sits serenely at Rennes le Château, home of the Knights Templar. What hidden depths lie within her and beyond her? Layers of time and intrigue both illuminate her true essence and cloud her story.

The Proposition bears witness to the first meeting of a couple divided by time itself. Partly obscured by the curtain we can see figures from Poussin's painting, Les Bergers d'Arcadie. This seventeenth century tableau depicts Renne le Château in its rugged mountainous landscape. Similarly, the lovers in What Thou Wilt have hung the very same masterpiece in their bordello. Unravel the hidden symbolism, and these four seemingly disparate individuals are revealed to be linked not only to each other, but to Jeanne d'Arc as well.

All images in the ALTERNITY series are digital montages of Steven Cook's own original photographs with original antique carte de visites. Andy Warhol was photographed by Steven at a party in London's Heaven nightclub the year before Warhol's untimely death. John F Kennedy's appearance in Escape from Dealey Plaza owes itself to a photo Cook took in 1990 of a strikingly convincing bust of the late President's head. The alternative reality presented by this haunting image raises new questions about JFK's tragedy, opening parallel commentary along the lines of the Greek tales of antiquity.

Other guest stars appearing in the ALTERNITY series have either posed specifically for this project or have been selected with their permission from Steven's own extensive negative archive. They are:

William Orbit Musician and producer, respected for his work on the classic Madonna album, Ray of Light.
Brendan McCarthy Co-writer & designer of the fourth Mad Max movie - Fury Road and award winning comic artist.
Valeria Dragover The world's first fetish supermodel.
Frances 'Dunebug' Sand America's most beautiful body modification pioneer.
Betti Marenko Leading body theory academic and author.
Caroline Ridley-Faux Socialite and débutante.

All other participants have waited a hundred or more years to appear in this project. Their time has come!
Claire Singer 2002

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"Any computer aid can be misused and Photoshop's facilities for manipulation of images have led to some less-than-stunning results "Cook's work is a lesson in how it should be done"
Tony Mitchell,
editor Fetish Masterpieces of Erotic Fantasy Photography (Carlton Books, l999)

• Exhibited Work

Image Duplicator
Orbital Gallery
Great Newport St, London, WC2
May 16 -May 31, 2013

Magick Eye 2
Orbital Gallery
Great Newport St, London, WC2
October 18 - November 18, 2012

Secret Origins 2
Portraits of Graphic Novel Creators
(Solo Exhibition for the release of
The Dark Knight Rises)
Renoir Cinema
Brunswick Centre, London, WC1
July 20 - Aug 17, 2012

Stripped!
Orbital Gallery
Great Newport Street
London, WC2
March 1st - April 1st 2012

The Chosen
The Red Gallery
3 Rivington Street
London, EC2
Aug 11th - 18th 2011

Secret Origins (Solo exhibition)
Orbital Gallery
Great Newport Street
London, WC2
Sept 17th - Oct 17th 2009

Spin: The Art of Record Design
The Arts Gallery
University of the Arts
London, W1
Sept 3rd - Oct 3rd 2008

The London Look
Fashion From Street To Catwalk
Museum of London
London EC2
Oct 29th 2004 - May 8th 2005

Alternity - photographs remixed
Gigantic ArtSpace
59 Franklin Street,
New York, NY
June 16th - July 31st 2004

Alternity
J Walter Thompson
Knightsbridge,
London, Nov 2003 - Jan 2004

Alternity
Deluxe Gallery,
Hoxton Square,
London - July 2003

Alternity
Digital DUMBO,
Dumbo, Brooklyn,
New York - Sept 2002

Alternity (Solo exhibition)
Colville Place Gallery,
London - May 2002

Celebration
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)
London 1999

Erotic Oscars (Finalist)
The Leydig Trust, London 1999

Transitions
The Photographers' Gallery,
London 1993

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• Published work

BarBelle
Cult-Ure
Ed. Rian Hughes.
October 2010
Fiell Publishing

Stacey K
The Boot
Ed. Bradley Quinn.
September 2010
Laurence King Publishing

Fifth Dimensional Man
Alternity Portrait of Grant Morrison
Ed. Bradley, D.
September 2009
SFX magazine

Portfolio
Cook's work profiled by Hilde Marstrander
Ed. Marstrander, H.
January 2009
SNITT magazin for visuell kommunikasjon (Norway)

The Wicked Companion
Sophie Aldred & Steve Cook interviewed
Ed. Wright, J.
January 2006
SFX magazine: Doctor Who Special

Alternative Reality
Steven Cook Interviewed
by Charles Walford
Two page feature
Ed. Adey, M.
January 2004
KEY Magazine

History in the Making
Alternity review
Arts section
Ed. McGrath,
N. October 2003
Docklands Magazine

1200 Quid
"The Other-Worlds of Grant Morrison"
Interview by Robin Ibbeson
Ed. Taylor, L / Lomax, C.
April/May 2003
FLUX Magazine

Her name is Death
Front cover image
Vertigo X - Anniversary Preview
Ed. Bond, S. February 2003
DC Vertigo

Monique de Roissy
Device - "Art, Commercial"
Rian Hughes
Ed. Klanten, R. July 2002
Die Gestalten Verlag

God Save the Queen
DeFace THE FACE special supplement
Ed. Davis, J. December 2001
Emap Magazines
The Face

Barbie
Front cover images
Ed. Reader, J. 2000-2002
Egmont Magazines/Mattel
Barbie Magazine

The Landing at Halo Cradle
Postcard series. 2000
Art Unlimited, Holland

Miss Kapoor
Front cover image
Ed. Bishop, D. 1999
2000 AD Magazine

The Story of Zero
Four colour images in collaboration with Alexander Brattell
Ed. Mitchell, T. 1999 Carlton Books Fetish-Masterpieces of Erotic Fantasy Photography

'Fresh Cooking'
Preview of the Alternity Series
Ed. Sherman, L. 1999
Skin Two Magazine

The Story of Zero
Fourteen images in collaboration
with Alexander Brattell,
text by Grant Morrison
Ed. Sherman, L. 1998
Skin Two Magazine

(Numerous images from the series published as album sleeves, postcards etc).

3000 AD
Front and back cover images
in collaboration with Alexander Brattell
Ed. Bishop, D. 1997
(Egmont Fleetway)
3000 AD

'Folio'
Preview of 3000 AD imagery
Ed. Holt, M. 1997
Creative Technology Magazine

The New Flesh
Front cover image
Ed. Ridout, C. 1996
Manga Magazine