Lia Cook

Bridging several generations of technological development, Lia Cook’s textile-based works complicate and enrich the relationship between image and process. Cook weaves digital images of cherubic faces or dolls using a Jacquard loom, adding patterns taken from EEG and MRI brain scans over her subjects. The neurological scans themselves evoke textile patterns, drawing a thread between advanced medical procedures and handmade craft. For Cook, the neurological imagery underlines the different sensations viewers experience when looking at an image on a textile, rather than on paper or screen. “When people see that my pictorial pieces are actually woven, it adds an important element to their experience of the work. Specifically it creates more intense relationships to the pieces,” Cook has said.