About the Artist

Pamela Cook is a contemporary pastel artist based in southeastern North Carolina.  She loved making art as a child and teen, but turned to her equal love of science for career, before coming full circle with a return to art in 2005.  Initially working in oils, in 2014 she discovered the pure joy of pastel painting. The luminosity achieved with these pure pigments allow her to capture light and shadow in a manner that continues to draw her back to the easel daily.

Primarily a landscape painter, Pamela works to convey her reverence for nature through her painting.  This helps her, and, she hopes, the viewer, to stay centered and calm in a turbulent world.  She is drawn to simple, everyday scenes like a stand of trees or a mountain stream gushing past rocks.  She will often paint the same scene multiple times, varying her palette and adjusting the composition to achieve different moods. 

Affiliations

• Signature Member, Degas Pastel Society
• Signature Member, North Carolina Pastel Society
• Associate Member, American Impressionist Society
• Associate Member, Pastel Society of America
• Founding Member, Coastal Carolina Pastel Painters

Notable Recent Acceptances and Awards

• 2025 American Impressionist Society 6th Annual Juried Online Exhibition
• 2025 Southeastern Pastel Society Juried Online Exhibition
• 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 Pure Color, the International Juried Exhibition of the North Carolina Pastel Society
• 2024 North Carolina Pastel Society Statewide Exhibition, Sennelier Award
• 2023 99 Voices in Pastel, International Juried Exhibition, Haggin Museum, Stockton CA
• 2023 International Association of Pastel Societies, Juried Webshow, open division
• 2023 Landfall Foundation Art Show, 2nd Place
• 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 North Carolina Azalea Festival (Wilmington Art Association) Statewide Show. 2023 Honorable Mention
• 2023 and 2020: For Pastels Only, the International Juried Exhibition of the Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod Show, 2020 Jack Richeson Award
• 2023 Warmth in Winter, International Juried Exhibition of the Pastel Society of Alaska
• 2022 International Association of Pastel Societies, Juried Exhibition, open division
• 2022 and 2021 Renaissance in Pastel, the Connecticut Pastel Society International Juried Show 2021 Merit Award
  
• 2022 National Juried Exhibition, Southeastern Pastel Society
  
• 2022 and 2020 Pastels in Paradise, Left Coast Pastel Society National Juried Show
  
• 2022 National Juried Exhibition, Great Lakes Pastel Society
  
• 2020 18th Biennial Juried National Exhibition, Degas Pastel Society
  
• 2021 Juried Small Works Show, National Association of Women Artists
  
• 2020 Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club Associates/Non-Members Juried Show, 1st Place, Pastels
  
• 2020 Winter Dakota Pastel International Competition, Honorable Mention in the Emerging Artist Category
  
• 2020 Pastel Society of New Jersey National Juried Show, Merit Award
  
• 2020, 2019 Make Your Mark!, the International Juried Exhibition of the Pastel Society of Southern California Show - 5th Place Award in 2020.