Cooke received his BFA from Stetson University and his MFA from the University of Georgia. He works primarily with paint and mixed media. His work is centered on trying to create a balance of supposed opposites in his work: balancing the real and the unreal, and light and shadow. He taught painting, drawing, and watercolors at UNC-Asheville until 2006. The Asheville Art Museum hosted a major retrospective of his work in 1976. Cooke's work is in many permanent and public collections, including the Hunter Museum, the Mint Museum, and the Asheville Art Museum and has been exhibited in over 21 solo and 60 group exhibitions. He received the UNC Board of Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1997.