Julian Cooper
dal 10/11/2004 al 18/12/2004
Segnalato da
10/11/2004
Julian Cooper
Art Space Gallery, London
Cliffs of Fall. The artist is now regarded as one of the most original and thought provoking mountain painters working today. For this exhibition he has turned his attention to the Lake District's slate quarry on Honister Crag, and to that icon of Alpine mountaineering, the Eiger, which he visited in the summer of 2003.
Cliffs of Fall
Julian Cooper is now regarded as one of the most original and thought
provoking mountain painters working today. For this exhibition he has turned
his attention to the Lake District's slate quarry on Honister Crag, and to
that icon of Alpine mountaineering, the Eiger, which he visited in the
summer of 2003.
The earliest of his mountain landscapes, from the mid 90's, were huge
canvases painted on site at an altitude of 15,000ft in the Peruvian Andes.
These were followed four years later, after an expedition to the Himalayas,
with a group of semi-abstract paintings that changed the concentration from
the Romantic idea of the mountain as image, to the examination of selected
areas of the terrain: the mountain as seen and experienced by the climber.
The Honister and Eiger paintings in this exhibition build on what the
Himalayan work had started. Made in the studio, they represent the synthesis
of small plein air studies, photographs and memory; where the on-site
paintings had captured a superficial likeness, these paintings touch a
deeper psychological one. In evidence throughout is the awareness of an
artist who has been looking closely at mountain and rock formations for many
years and who draws equally on abstract and figurative values to develop a
wholly contemporary language to convey a sense of awe when confronted by
nature's elemental powers.
Born in the Lake District in 1947 Julian Cooper studied at Lancaster School
of Art (1964-65), Goldsmith's College of Art (1965) and in 1969 was awarded
the Boise Travelling Scholarship and was resident at the British School in
Rome. He has exhibited regularly in London and abroad, has work in
collections worldwide and during 16 June - 18 September 2005 there is to be
a major retrospective at Museo Nazionale Della Montagna in Turin, Italy.
A 22-page catalogue with 11 full colour reproductions and a recorded
conversation between Julian Cooper and fellow painter Basil Beattie, is
available.
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11 am until 7 pm
Image: AT THE BASE OF THE EIGER, 2004, oil on canvas 36 X 44 ins.
Art Space Gallery
84 St Peter's Street N1 8JS
London