Timothy Cook was born in 1958 and lives and works at Milikapiti on Melville Island. His country is Goose Creek, Melville Island, his skin group Marntupuni (House Fly) and dance Tarduwuli (Shark). A member of Jilamara Arts & Crafts Association, he began exhibiting his work in the late 1990s.
Featuring circular and cross motifs, Cook’s paintings are strongly connected to aspects of Tiwi ceremonial practice, particularly the Kulama (yam ceremony) and Pukumani (funeral ceremony), as well as stories of Purukapali, one of the great mythological Tiwi ancestral figures.
Cook has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally. In 2012 Cook won the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Award and was a finalist in 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. He was a finalist in the Togart Contemporary Art Award, Darwin (2010 and 2013); Kate Challis RAKA Award, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, Melbourne (2013); Western Australian Indigenous Art Awards, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth (2009 and 2011); Xstrata Coal Emerging Indigenous Art Award (2006); and the Shell Fremantle Print Award, Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth (2002).
His paintings are represented in numerous major public and private collections in Australia and internationally. Source Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney