Tim Cooke was born on 23 June 1942 in Essex, England, to become a South African at the age of three. In his school years his creative instincts drew him always towards abstract art. While fellow students studied the Impressionists and South African landscape artists, Tim was delving into the worlds of Picasso, Dahli and other abstract masters.

It was while attending a school set high in the majestic Drakensburg Mountains that he first became aware of rural African life. Tim was captured by their raw, colourful simplicity that is often interwoven with intricate symbolism. Through his interaction with the local black mountain dwellers, he came to appreciate their many unique qualities, but the one characteristic that seemed common and binding amongst their variety of cultural strains, was their love and capacity for communication . . . and a seed of inspiration was sown in a young artist, that he would carry throughout his career.

Tim is a self-taught painter and became a professional artist in 1980, starting out with abstract works. He then turned his skills to flowers, birds in flight, wild animals, the African bushveld, landscapes, seascapes, all brought to life with his own abstract flavour. In recent years the canvasses that leave his studio depict an ethnic theme, rich with the colour and eternal throb of Africa.

Perhaps as a creative impulse inherited from his indigenous friends high in the Drakensburg, Tim strives in every piece of art for a higher communication. His paintings, in result, emanate atmosphere. He paints with trademark styles and techniques he developed over the years, and a Tim Cooke original is always unique and easily recognizable.

A prolific artist, many of his works now reside in the homes and corporate buildings of local South Africa, as well as those of Europe, Canada, America, Australia, Asia... And several other countries. He provides paintings to art galleries in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town, as well as to interior decorators and designers.