Artist Nardiz Cooke Transforms Radiation Masks Into Works of Art

When artist Nardiz Cooke appears on a Zoom screen, her brown, wavy hair cascades over the camera as she settles onto her couch. She’s in her Miami apartment, surrounded by stacks of books and walls covered with frames. In the far corner, quite literally on a pedestal, is a mask covered in black kyanite. The thermoplastic mask is typically used for cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy, but it’s taken on a new life in this setting.

In 2021, Cooke was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and has since been a patient at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Health System. It was during her treatment here that she turned to her art practice to seek solace and find her inner warrior. 

The black mask on display in her home serves not only as a visual reminder of Cooke’s strength, but of her ongoing battle. 

Over the last four years, she has transformed these plastic masks into works of art. Twelve of them will be on display during Art Week, when Cooke opens her first solo show, “The Radiant Sentinels,” at Glottman Shop in Wynwood. Two of the masks were used in her own treatment, while the other ten were donated anonymously by other cancer patients at Sylvester.

Cooke’s cancer journey began in 2018 when she first felt a lump in her right breast. She was 37. She immediately went to see her now former OBGYN, who dismissed the mass as nothing more than scar tissue buildup. Cooke went about living her life until two years later, when her health took a turn. She began experiencing splitting headaches paired with double vision and tinnitus. 

“I knew something was wrong,” she recalls. “And since this was all happening two years after I first felt the lump, I wasn’t connecting any dots.” 

Cooke proceeded to see an ear doctor, who cleared her, and an eye doctor, who also cleared her. But she still felt sick. Eventually, she found herself in the emergency room one night, where they ran all sorts of tests. 

Cooke recalls being in the MRI machine. “I was lying there, exhausted and delirious, and then Louis Armstrong’s ‘What a Wonderful World’ started playing in the headphones.” Tears formed in her eyes as she braced herself for the test results. 

At the end of that long ER visit, the doctors handed her a piece of paper that read, “Malignant edema, highly suggestive of metastatic disease.” 

Her life changed forever in that instant. At age 40, she was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. It was both a relief to know the root of all her strange symptoms and a terror to enter into this battle. 

As she began her treatment to fight the cancer, one of the radiation therapies she underwent involved wearing a large metal mask. It sparked inspiration. She asked to keep the mask once the treatment was over. Eventually, Cooke was inspired to adorn her trophy. 

“I just started to add crystals to the mask until I covered the whole thing,” she says. “I showed it to my neurologist, who loved it and encouraged me to keep going.” That first piece is now on display at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center lobby. “I just saw her,” says Cooke, referring to the mask. “I had to go to treatment this morning, actually.” 

Her project, “The Radiant Sentinels,” continues to grow, and Cooke now turns all sorts of radiation masks into works of art. She adorns them with materials ranging from Swarovski crystals to colored kyanite, fish scales, mirrored glass, and naturally shed antlers. 

Each thermoplastic mask is custom-made to the wearer’s specifications. In a way, Cooke says, it’s as if the patient’s unique energies are imbued in the material. She likes to refer to the masks as sentients with a special essence. 

“I believe every one of us is battling something in our lives, and I believe every one of us has a radiance that lives within us. We are each responsible for that radiance,” Cooke says. “I like to say that this project is built from battle to beauty.”

Nardiz Cooke’s “The Radiant Sentinels.” 6 p.m. Thursday, December 4, at Glottman Shop, 2213 NW Second Ave., Miami. 305-438-3711; glottman.com.