Artist: Don Cooper

Medium: Acrylic on canvas

Size: 16" x 20"

Artist Bio:
Don Cooper's paintings have relied heavily on symbolism for the past 25 years.
Symbolic images such as the sacred lotus, the vortex, the bindu and the circle signify
meanings that are different from their literal sense. The symbols often express
psychological, mystical and spiritual states of mind.
Cooper was born in Texas, but grew up in Georgia. He has lived and worked in Atlanta
since 1976. His art has been inspired by travels in the US, Britain, Canada, Mexico,
Central and South America, Vietnam, Thailand, India and China. Cooper has been
awarded fellowships from the Fulbright Program, SECCA 7, the Southern Arts
Federation, CGR and Awards in the Visual Arts. To date, Cooper's work has been in
over 30 solo exhibitions and 65 regional and international group exhibitions. In 2004,
Cooper was one of six Georgia artists to be included in the MOCA GA exhibition,
Transitions II, curated by Karen Comer Lowe. The artist is one of three winners of the
inaugural 2007 MOCA GA Working Artist Project Grant and he was also awarded the
Judith Alexander Artadia Award in 2009.

ARTIST STATEMENT
I'm looking for something I've never seen before, something described by its difference.
This has been my mantra for most of my painter's life. These new paintings, as results
of experimentation and reaction to specific stimuli over the past three years, are
evidence of multiple transitional creative shifts. The stimuli may involve materials such
as neutral gray colors, the black (infinity), or even the way plants lean away from the
vertical. The predecessors of these paintings used a triangular shape in order to
represent the fire or heat of creative passion. The new work is less specific. They are
more about abstract space and imbalance. The structural drawings for the paintings
began by stretching and distorting the triangular shape while attempting to retain the
energy of the original three-sided image. The paintings are specifically about searching.
My process involves being completely open to discoveries and change.