Todd Cookman
"Toddism"
A self-taught Colorado painter whose journey from sobriety to the canvas has produced one of the most distinctive contemporary voices in modern figurative and animal portraiture.
I recently had the pleasure of meeting an artist named Todd Cookman through a mutual friend, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about his work since.
I've only known Todd for a short time, but in that time I was lucky enough to see his personal collection in his basement, and it genuinely stopped me in my tracks. His work is incredible online, but standing in front of it is something else entirely. Walking through that basement felt like walking through a private gallery of Western-themed contemporary art that I had never seen anything quite like before. It brought me real joy.
Beyond his work, Todd is a living book full of stories, life lessons, and experiences that show up directly in his art. I'm reaching out because I think more people in the right places deserve to see what he's making, and at this stage in his career, that audience matters.
This is a short introduction to Todd, his story, and his work. If any of it resonates, I'd be honored to make a direct connection.
The Story
Todd Cookman began drawing as a child. In high school, his teachers urged him toward the Chicago Art Institute or the Ringling College of Art in Sarasota. He never got the chance. His father's career relocated the family to Europe, and the path to formal training closed before it opened. Over the years that followed, Todd's art quietly receded into the background of life.
Seven years ago, that changed. Getting sober, Todd returned to the canvas, not as a hobby, but as a survival mechanism. He calls it "bleeding on the canvas": paint as a release, as a way to move through what recovery demanded of him. The work that emerged is what you see now. Bright. Bold. Unmistakably his own.
He calls his style "Toddism." Others have called it Modern, Fauvist, Impressionistic. It belongs to none of those neatly and to all of them in part. What's certain is this: nobody else paints like Todd Cookman.
"His art sucked. It needed work."
One of the first stories I heard from Todd has stuck with me. He told me that more than once, people in the art world, the kind I would personally call so-called "artists," had told him to his face that his work wasn't good enough, that it needed work, that he wasn't really one of them.
If someone said that to me, I would have lost it. Todd didn't. He told the story calmly, almost without an edge. And you could feel it in him: he took every one of those moments and turned them into fuel. He used them. He kept painting. He kept refining. He kept showing up to the canvas.
Look at his work now and you can see exactly where that energy went. The boldness in his shapes. The confidence in his color. The growth across his catalog from year to year. That kind of quiet resilience is rare, and it's one of the main reasons I believe in betting on him.
Selected Works
The Working Artist
Why Now
Todd is relocating from Denver to Wyoming in the coming weeks. For an artist whose work draws so heavily on animal portraiture, Western character, and the bold figurative language that defines contemporary Western art, the move is more than personal. It's professional alignment.
He is established enough to be taken seriously, with consistent gallery representation and a body of work spanning eight years. But he hasn't yet had the wider exposure his work deserves. That gap is what this introduction is meant to close.
If his work resonates with you, your collectors, or your program, I'd be glad to make an introduction directly to Todd at the right moment. Or if you'd prefer to reach him yourself, his email is included below.
Thank you for taking the time to look. Even if Todd's work isn't the right fit for your space, a forwarded introduction to someone who might be interested would mean a great deal.
I spend my days building things in the digital space, but every now and then I come across someone whose work genuinely stops me. Todd is one of those people. I'm sending this because I think his art deserves a wider audience than it currently has, and I have the time and the desire to help make that happen.