Current Exhibition at the Klein Gallery

About the Exhibit

The Esther M. Klein Art Gallery is pleased to present the work of two outstanding regional artists who both address family, history, memory, and dreams in their work.

Charles Cooper's paintings reflect his love of Indian miniature painting, Gothic painting, and American figurative works of the 1950s, yet each one is also a personal dreamscape where direct observation of figures and still life objects are combined freely to create ambiguous spatiality and a surreal sense of time and place. Cooper often uses his own family members as models or paints old photographs into his works. His working process frequently begins with collage where he experiments with layering, integrating, and juxtaposing both design and personal components. The resulting paintings are enigmatic and metaphorical and each one is, in a way, a study of the complex relationships between objects and between people.

John Stone's sculptures also reference relationships, most notably his own relationship with his history, his family, and his location in American society. Stone often integrates found objects and family snapshots to make his varied sculptures and multi-media assemblages that reference a specifically African American history, but a history that is nonetheless shared by all Americans. Stone's excellent and inventive craftsmanship is evidence of his study of architecture and construction techniques. His use of many repeated motifs - snapshots, single-pen cabins, tobacco - highlight the influence of Stone's summer trips to his family home in North Carolina.

John Stone attended Parsons School of Design in New York City where he majored in Architecture and Environmental Design. He also has a degree in Construction Management from Temple University. His works have been shown internationally and he is the recipient of numerous awards including a 2000 Independence Foundation Fellowship and a 1999 New Landmarks award. Most recently he has had one-person exhibitions at Seton Hall University and at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh, PA. He was one of the 16 artists selected for Biennial 2000: At The Crossroads at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. John Stone lives in Philadelphia.

Charles Cooper currently teaches painting at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He received his MFA from Yale University and his BFA from the University of the Arts. He has been exhibiting regularly since 1986 and his works are in the public collections of the Delaware Art Museum and the Newark Museum. In 2001 he received the Purchase Award/Work of Distinction from the Perkins Center for the Arts in Moorestown, NJ, and in 2002 he received a Venture Fund Grant from the University of the Arts. Charles Cooper lives in Willingboro, NJ.