House of Seiko presents Bucolic Cob: Bellevue, an exhibition of new work by Emma cc Cook that considers the long transformation of the Los Angeles basin—from irrigated agricultural experiment to expansive urban grid, and into its current hybrid state, where planned environment and inherited terrain remain in uneasy alignment. Central to the work is the history of large-scale water management and civic engineering, particularly the period shaped by William Mulholland’s aqueduct systems, which redirected not only resources but also patterns of habitation. A key reference for Cook is Norman M. Klein’s The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory, in which the city is described as a site of continual revision, where official narratives often replace or obscure what preceded them. Yet, because the region remains relatively young, earlier layers of occupation persist as faint residues, compressed into the contemporary moment rather than absorbed by time.

Cook translates these historical conditions into a pictorial language grounded in rhythm and structural order. Textured fields of oil paint are organized into linear formations, creating the base architecture of the compositions. In works such as Combine III (2025), repeating floral elements extend across the surface in what the artist has described as an “exercise in tedium,” invoking both labor and continuity. At times, these forms verge on the cellular, suggesting that the pressures of infrastructure register not only across the landscape, but within the body.

Deliberate markers punctuate these environments. Pylon-like towers appear as quiet anchors—emblems of the networks that sustain daily life while remaining largely unacknowledged. Bold geometric forms in primary color intervene across the terrain, reading as coded overlays or notational devices. Their visual authority stands in contrast to the dense, worked grounds beneath them, foregrounding the tension between lived space and imposed systems. The paintings also operate as records of time, the cyclical rise and recession of agricultural use, and the progressive layering of infrastructure. Along the upper edges of many of the pictures, Cook introduces an evocation of a long-exposure night sky, where faint celestial bodies traverse the dark. This quiet gesture acknowledges a natural temporal order that persists alongside the engineered landscape.

Materially, the paintings bear the trace of their own making. Layers of oil are applied, removed, and rearticulated until the surface attains a compact, sedimented quality. The exhibition title, Bucolic Cob: Bellevue, evokes the vantage offered by the ridgelines surrounding the Los Angeles basin, from which one can observe the gradual transformation of a barren expanse into its many shifting configurations. The word “Bellevue,” derived from the French for “beautiful view,” is operative here not merely as description, but as a cultural position. To occupy a “bellevue” in Los Angeles is to engage a charged site of aspiration, speculation, oversight, and desire, a viewpoint from which the city’s promises and consequences remain simultaneously visible. Cook’s paintings inhabit this threshold, attentive to both the aesthetic seduction of the landscape and the histories that structure its present form.

Emma cc Cook (b. 1989, Minneapolis, MN, USA) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, USA. Recent solo and two person exhibitions include Bucolic cob, Public, London (2025); Caterpillar, Outer space, Concord (2024); Acre Eaters, Anonymous Gallery, New York (2024); Manners, Hayseed, 1226, Dallas (2024); Dibbler stick, Adams & Ollman, Portland (2023); Pilgrim, Public Gallery, London (2022); Flags, Moskowitz Bayse, Los Angeles (2022); Peeping Tom, Et Al, San Francisco (2022); and Milkman Pigeon, Half Gallery, New York (2021). She has participated in group exhibitions at Sixi Museum, Nanjing; Et al, San Francisco; Almine Rech, Brussels; Harpers, New York; 1226, Los Angeles; Adams & Ollman, Portland and Public Gallery, London. Select residencies include New York School of the Arts at Vytacil and Campos de Gutierrez in Medellin, Colombia. Cook received the MSAB grant, the Carter Prize in Painting and the Gay M. Grossman Memorial Scholarship.