Terry Cooke Hall is a bit of an enigma in that she doesn’t check any of the traditional art boxes you might have in mind for a master artist. For instance, she chose to study art at Palomar College in San Marcos, California, rather than at the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. That decision had more to do with fear than fundamentals.

“Not enough strength of character,” she says lightly. “If I think back to that time, it was fear of moving to the big city by myself.”

Read the full article in the January/February 2022 issue.

Undercover Angel

Oil and gold foil on cradled birch panel
30” by 30”

“I chose the reference for this piece because it allowed the least use of her figure as possible. The touch of realism in her face and hat shift into a stylized abstraction of her form, suggesting a conceptual realm. In the end, all melt away into a lustrous circle of gold, intimating a concealed beauty wrapped in an enigma as she hovers in an imaginary world.”

Joie de Vivre

Oil and gold foil
9” by 12”

“Just for fun, I placed a bison skull with flowers arranged inside the cavity outside in the late afternoon sun and took several reference photos focused on the shadows created by the steep angle of the sun. Painted on a background of gold foil, he was the perfect vessel for juxtaposing nature’s beauty and grace cradled within his legacy of strength.”