Behind every painting in For Sport is a network of personal memories, historical references, and carefully chosen symbols. Drawing from childhood experiences in the American South, theater, hunting imagery, and the history of painting, Catie Cook builds layered narratives that invite viewers to look beyond the surface.
In Stories Behind For Sport, Cook reflects on four key works from the exhibition, sharing the inspirations and artistic influences that shaped each painting. Together, these reflections offer a deeper understanding of the recurring characters, motifs, and ideas woven throughout the exhibition.
Ingenue (2026)
66 x 52 in, oil on canvas
This painting builds upon a previous painting of mine called "Places, Please". In it, I depict the illusion of a stage set with a spotlight, blue curtain, and a dog leaping out of frame. For "Ingenue", I painted an eerily similar set as a call back. I made a sketch a year ago and never painted it, so this idea was one that I knew I wanted to revisit for the show.
I loved the idea of placing the deer in an artificial and uncanny version of its environment. Its picturesque and sort of cartoony, on these visibly flat layers, like a quickly painted stage set would be. There's something both sweet and unsettling about it.
I think the deer character becomes a stand in for me as a young girl. There's the obvious joke of the “deer in the headlights,” provoking a feeling of danger, coupled with the connotations of performance. Ingenue references a character archetype in the theater representing an innocent, naive girl.
The scene places the viewer as the audience, with this sort of anticipation. The performance hasn't started and the deer seems unsure of its next move—for me that's where the tension of the painting lies.
Best Wishes (2026)
30 x 30 in, oil on canvas
This was one of the last paintings I made for the show. Making this whole body of work, I've been playing around with shifting the predator and prey relationship in my paintings, depicting imaginative hunting scenes where it is unclear who is hunting and who is being hunted.
I had this idea that maybe the female figure who has been the hunter in so many paintings, pulling the strings, should become the final victim. I think of this painting as the conclusion to the story. It loosely explores the ways in which women can internalize misogyny and become the perpetrators, particularly in the American South, where I was raised.
I'm pulling imagery from my childhood in the south, including the bride or debutante archetype. When I thought about how the violence would be enacted, I knew I wanted it to be obscured like it is in other paintings with pearls, bows, and ribbons. I went with the arrow because it's just absurd and out of date enough, while also evoking a visceral feeling. It feels antiquated, yet it's something so familiar to me because I grew up with it.
Growing up my dad bow hunted so it felt like the perfect pick. And I think the uncanny of that painting rings true for so many southern traditions that feel so antiquated but are continually happening.
I also looked at "The Wounded Deer", 1946 by Frida Kahlo and medieval depictions of archery. In Fridas painting, I found it devastatingly beautiful that she transforms herself into a deer. There's all the elements I love in a story, theatre, shock, sadness, and a finality to it.
Thank Heavens for Little Girls (2026)
71 x 54 in, oil on canvas
This painting took the longest of any of the works in the show. It started as a completely different painting, with a figure of a woman and one dog in the distance, hidden partially by trees. As I painted, I just felt that the space was too open and needed compression or action. I'd been looking at photos of packs of hunting dogs, and depictions of Diana with her hunting dogs throughout art history, so I got brave in December and added the pack of Dalmatians.
In my work, Dalmatians have become a sort of stand in for myself, and symbol for women. They each have distinct expressions, leading the viewer in different directions. I love how their legs became this tangled web, where it becomes hard to tell whose is whose. As I was painting I was thinking of Carrivaggio’s "The Taking of Christ". Similarly, in the painting, the chiaroscuro lighting effect makes it so that you cannot tell whose hands are doing the taking, adding a layer of complicity to all the characters.
The curtain is important to the work as it recalls the imagery of the theatre, but it also serves the role of reframing the context and the interruption of viewing. In adding a curtain or lighting effect that audiences literally must look through to observe the scene, the context of the image shifts. In that space, the dogs become both performers and hunters.
The title refers to the song title from the 1958 film "Gigi". I have always loved films from this era, particularly Golden age musicals. There's this undercurrent of gender to so many of the films that almost goes unnoticed because we as the audience find the films so nostalgic and aesthetically alluring. often I will rewatch a film and find that a song I used to love seems creepy in today's context. Then that feeling is at odds with my love and affection for the movie. I feel this way about a lot of aspects of life including my nostalgia for Georgia, love of Dalmatians, and femininity. There's these aspects of life that are inherently irreconcilable, that's what I hope to capture in paint.
Maneater
72 x 70 in, oil on canvas
Aside from it being one of my most ambitious paintings technically, Maneater was one of the easier paintings for me in this show. This is because the idea came to me so naturally. A few years ago I painted a series of snarling dog portraits that I titled You Should Smile More. I Was interested at the time in body language, particularly the similarity between a dog's smile and snarl. I got to thinking about how many times I've been told by a man to smile and how nice it would be to growl back. Then I had a professor see the paintings and suggest I repaint it but at a monumental scale. I sat on the idea for a while, but when I got the offer for a solo show from Tanner and Max, I knew it was time to attempt.
I wanted the painting to reference 18th ce portraiture like the work of Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds. So I went with a sweeping landscape in the background, adapted from a George Stubbs painting—another huge influence in my work. Then I set out the tedious work of painting individual furs. I had a lot of fun making this painting, because unlike other works in the show that changed and required a lot of repainting, this one was like a paint by number. I could put on a good podcast or playlist and just go to town working on each section. In that way it was almost meditative for me to paint.
Together, these reflections reveal the many influences that shape For Sport, from childhood memories and theatrical imagery to art history and Southern traditions. By sharing the ideas behind these works, Catie Cook invites viewers to look more closely at the layered narratives that unfold throughout the exhibition.
For Sport remains on view through July 10 at Square One Gallery. To learn more about the exhibition or inquire about available works, follow the link here.
