John Cote
Saplings and Arias
ON DISPLAY: Jan. 3 - Feb. 28, 2026
Reception: Sunday, Jan. 4 at 2pm
Artist’s Statement
I had a show here at the library in 2003. Back then it was all prints. A few I've brought back to hang alongside a painting. Some are direct translations into paint twenty-three years later. What can I say? I enjoy depicting animals.
They are emotive. They can be troubled, overworked, sad, desperate. They can also be sweet. And in the great illustrative tradition I was schooled in, they can act as stand-ins for the human condition while remaining themselves.
There really was a forty foot high, diving horse act on Atlantic City's Steel Pier. There was a chicken in basically a vending machine that you could play tic tac toe with in a Chinatown arcade. There was a Toby the Wise Pig you could converse with for a shilling on Fleet Street in mid eighteenth century London. There still are animals in circuses around the world. Animals jumping through hoops.
My parents were working poor, jumping through hoops most of their lives. I dedicate this show to Pauline and Al Cote.
John Cote-2026
