Karen Cooper
Sparkle City, 2024
Japanese Washi paper on Bristol vellum
Paper size: 4 x 6"
Frame: 6-1/2 x 8-1/2"

Artist Statement
The work is quiet and constructed from washi papers purchased in Japan. The elements have been added one by one until the work and its story is complete. The final composition emphasizes form but the white spaces play an important role.

My work is quiet. I take a meditative approach. My desk is cluttered with fractured pieces, but then I'll take a piece and put it next to another and it begins to tell me something... to tell a story. When I add the next element the story may change. Sometimes, as I add to the story, finding the next element becomes more and more difficult. I'll put the work aside for days, weeks or months. Then, suddenly, the solution will appear, like an insight that solves a mathematical puzzle. The work contains color and form, but also white space, which plays an equally powerful and important role. I recently started to add thread to collages as a connective tool; a way to help the eye move around the work in a balanced way.

Artist Bio
My background is graphic design. While living in NYC I took evening classes at The School of Visual Arts and free-lanced at prominent graphic design companies before founding my own studio. After New York my family moved to the South, Midwest and then Philadelphia. In 2014 we moved overseas, spending 2 years in Shanghai, then 2 years in Tokyo and returned to Shanghai for 2 years. While in Japan I fell in love with handmade washi paper and began to make small abstract collages incorporating found paper, thread, cloth and other everyday materials such as confectionary wrappers. My work on these collages continues to this day. I hope my work conveys the quiet, thoughtful, beauty of those source materials.

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