Octavia Cook
Living in a material world: the jewellery of Miss Octavia Cook
Octavia Cook’s metaphorical Endeavour has arrived on the beaches of New Zealand jewellery. With her recent work she’s flagging new territory, like her namesake Captain James, not for King or Country this time around, but for herself and the future direction of New Zealand jewellery.
Cook’s solo practice has launched into the commercial stratosphere of deluxe jewellery multinationals. This fantasy transformation from solitary artist to Fashion Institution (Cook & Co) is humorous yet poignant, a form of self-aggrandisement when hammering out your personal income can be a slow, painstaking process. ‘I wanted to play on the idea of ‘Tiffany & Co’ being an ultraluxe multinational, as Cook is such an unglamorous name,’ Cook says. Cook’s mock tribute includes a jaunty marketing campaign cum self-branding exercise, placing herself and her family name firmly in the foreground.
In The Family Jewels, Mum, Dad and the three sisters reside in a cameo—a Cook family outing captured in time. Cameos tell little about their subject, but show that the individual portrayed is esteemed and/or loved enough to be created in relief and kept for posterity. Cook believes her drive for family documentation—a genealogical process of sorts—stemmed from her grandmother’s collection of brooches, ‘I used to love pouring over her heirloom jewellery box. I’d get so excited because it really felt like treasure hunting.’ In her past work, Cook’s own profile, as founder of Cook & Co, has faced that of Captain James Cook, ‘discoverer of New Zealand’, in a cameo face-off. In a more recent work, a double-sided cameo has her back to back with the Queen.
While the previous generation has investigated colonization and attempted to locate particular or specific cultural identities through the use of Pacific materials, Cook is looking somewhere else entirely. As a Pākehā with a very British-sounding name, Cook has taken a different angle on the identity debate, blowing the departure lounge wide open with her international appropriation of the world’s largest jewellery houses, chuckling at her unavoidable whiteness.
Anna Dean
This text is an edited excerpt from Anna Dean, 'Living in a material world', Object Magazine 49, April 2006, pp.26-29. Reproduced with kind permission of Anna Dean and Object Magazine.
Octavia Cook artist bio:
Born Auckland, 1978
Lives and works in Auckland
Bachelor of 3D Design (Jewellery), Unitec Insitute of Technology, Auckland
Selected solo exhibitions include: 'Ribbons and Bows', Inform Jewellery, Christchurch (2006); 'Cook & Co: The Family Jewels', Anna Miles Gallery, Auckland (2005); 'Pugs and Prey', Anna Miles Gallery, Auckland (2004).
Selected group exhibitions include: 'Parallel Universe', Anna Miles Gallery, Auckland (2006); 'Drawn and Quartered; Jewellery from Workshop6', Inform Jewellery, Christchurch (2006); 'Stolen Jewels', Fingers Gallery, Auckland (2006); 'Growing Up: 20 years of the Unitec Jewellery Studio', Objectspace, Auckland (2006).
Image credits:
Octavia Cook
OC vs QEII, Double-sided Pendant Brooch 2006
acrylic, sterling silver, 18ct gold
Private collection, Auckland
Reverse side ofOC vs QEII, Double-sided Pendant Brooch 2006
acrylic, sterling silver, 18ct gold
Private collection, Auckland
Cook & Co Company Policy Chain 2005
sterling silver, 18ct gold
Private collection, Auckland