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Charles Cooper

Bio

Charles Cooper is currently an instructor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He has been exhibiting his work regularly since 1986 and his paintings are in the collections of the Delaware Art Museum and the Newark Museum. In 2001 he was awarded with the Purchase Award for a work of distinction from the Perkins Center for the Arts in New Jersey, and in 2002 he received the Venture Fund Grant from the University of the Arts. Cooper received his MFA from Yale University and his BFA from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He lives in Willingboro, New Jersey.

Statement

What I see influences me, but what I sense inside me influences me more. Although I often begin from observations, my dreams, memories, and subjective responses to experiences are an important reservoir of material upon which I draw. These particular paintings grow out of my fascination with the concept of a picture within a picture and dialogue between exterior and interior spaces in all its many possible meanings. They are also very much influenced by my interest in Indian miniature painting, Gothic painting, and the expressionist figurative work of the 1950s.

In this current body of paintings, direct observation of the human figure or still-life objects are freely combined with more invented elements to create images that are full of enigmatic elements, ambiguous relationships, and metaphorical overtones. My ideas are either developed through a series of studies and experimentations in a variety of media or in a give and take process in the actual painting. I am consciously trying to balance the necessity of the representational image with the expressive imperatives and a sense of pictorial construction. As the process unfolds, I try to be open to what the painting wants to become and what is discovered along the way.

Painting for me provides an arena for discovery, revelation, and testimony. I have come to view my work as analogous to dream making. In the work, the world of the exterior and interior are integrated, re-structured, condensed, or layered into a paradoxically cohesive whole that maintains its sense of incongruity and fragmentation. This is also why the principle of collage has grown increasingly important in my creative process and a fitting metaphor in how I experience the world.

 

Images
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