She may only be 21 years old, but Broward-based artist Liv Cook already seems to have a knack for bringing people together.
Making her debut as an exhibiting artist, Cook has convened a show that’s all about collaboration. Look What I Made at the Gasper Art Center features 11 mixed-media portraits, each modeled off of baby pictures supplied by various artists. Each face has been spruced up with harlequin-like decorations courtesy of Cook, who is also a trained esthetician and makeup artist.
“I really liked painting babies, so we were like, ‘we should do baby photos of the artists,’” Cook says. “But now, as the project has progressed and developed, it’s shifted more to focusing (on) and recognizing the fact that artistic and creative passion is something that you’re kind of born with, and children have the ability to express that completely unfiltered. They don’t have much of the like effects of the external world on them yet, so they have a lot of freedom in their expression. So it seemed like the most accurate version of the artist to be placed with their work.”
Cook, who moved to South Florida from Pittsburgh in 2021, is self-taught as an artist. Originally planning on dancing ballet professionally, she decided instead to attend a makeup and esthetician school. The training gave her a new insight into her passion for portraiture and the human face, and in 2023 she began painting portraits of faces.
“Dance made me really appreciate the human body as a way of expression,” she says. “My focus has been on depicting my vision of beauty, and what I find beautiful about people. So it’s kind of been an exploration of self as well as artistic development.”
The concept for Look What I Made has its origin in one of these face paintings, specifically a collaboration with her aunt, fellow artist Cary Daly. Cook painted the face while Daly handled the background, and the experience gave her a hunger for further collaborations.
Kelcie McQuaid, a friend of Daly and founder of the Broward-based arts cooperative Shangri-La Collective, had already been mentoring Cook by this point. Impressed by the 21-year-old’s makeup work, she encouraged her to pick up the brushes and apply her style to paintings.
“I kind of take it upon myself to mentor various artists in the community,” she says. “We just sat together one day, and I was like ‘I’d love to see your work.’ She started showing me what she was doing with makeup artistry, and I thought, ‘this is incredible.’ I was already in shock by how clear she was in her communication, visually, and I knew that she had what it took to bring that to the canvas.”
After Cook and Daly crafted their collaboration, McQuaid saw further potential in the idea. She helped Cook apply for an Artist Support Grant from the Broward County Cultural Division in order to put together the exhibition. She also helped Cook connect with Laura Gasper, founder of the Gasper Arts Center. The complex in Dania Beach serves as a one-stop shop for artists, complete with a ceramics studio, exhibition spaces, and smaller private studios for artists. Along with McQuaid and Daly, artists participating in the show include Amanda Covach, Fidel Perez, Laura Atria, and Sarah E. Huang.
Ates Isildak is another collaborator. Ordinarily a photographer based in West Palm Beach focusing on documenting various subcultures, he’s happy that the show with Cook has offered him the chance to try a different type of art on a larger scale.
“I’ve never had a piece that’s very big. I’m primarily a photographer, and lately it’s been all polaroids,” he says. “It’s something I’ve been wanting to have in my body of work for a long time.”
“Ates has a really well-rounded practice,” McQuaid says. “Having him in this project is such a treat for us, because it connects us to our friends outside of Broward County as well.”
Bringing in a Palm Beach-based artist like Isildak is consistent with one of the goals of Shangri-La Collective, which is to serve as a connector for artists from around South Florida as well as the world.
“What I try to do is bring our neighbors to Broward. It’s a big goal of mine that we meet in the center and work together in a collaborative way, because it just makes the most sense logistically.”
Look What I Made opens Saturday, September 6 and runs through Saturday, October 4.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: “Liv Cook: Look What I Made”
WHERE: Gasper Arts Center, 250 S. Federal Hwy., Dania Beach
WHEN: Tuesdays through Saturdays, 1 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
TICKETS: Free
INFORMATION: 954-656-3560 and gasperarts.com
