Jim Cooper | |
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Born | 1956 (age 67–68)
Westport, New Zealand |
Education | Otago Polytechnic |
Known for | Ceramic art installations |
Notable work |
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Awards |
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Jim Cooper (born 1956) is a New Zealand ceramic artist.
Cooper was born in Westport on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island in 1956, and attended Buller High School. [1]
He studied ceramics at the Otago Polytechnic School of Art in 1984 and 1989, but did not "get a ticket"; [2] he returned and completed a Masters of Fine Arts there in 1999. [1] [3] Cooper studied under Neil Grant while at Otago Polytechnic and acknowledges him as a mentor. [1]
After graduating, he taught for some time at Otago Polytechnic. [4]
Cooper has worked in ceramics since the early 1980s; his earliest works in 1982 were vessels. [2] He then began creating heads and torsos of free-standing figures and relief sculptures. [1] His works tend to consist of installations of numerous figures, sometimes hundredsa
One of his major works is Sgt P, a ceramic installation loosely inspired by the album art of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles. [5] The installation, made up of more than 100 ceramic figures, cardboard cut-outs and drawings, was shown at the Dowse Art Museum in 2007 and then toured to Tauranga, Rotorua and Auckland. [5]
In 2010, Cooper was one of three ceramic artists to take up residency at the Yingge Ceramics Museum to produce work for the 2010 Taiwan Ceramics Biennale. [6] His installation at the Biennale consisted of more than 1,000 pieces. [7] In 2013, he held a residency in Hualien, Eastern Taiwan, as ground breaker with the Taiwan Land Development Corporation. [7]
Cooper won the McSkimming Award in 1984. In 1996 he was a finalist in the New Ceramics and Glass Awards. [2] He won first place in the Norsewear Art Awards in 2006 for his work Snowy from Cavy. [5] He was named joint winner of the Portage Ceramic Awards in 2009 and was awarded the Premier Award in 2012 for his 30-piece installation Millbrook Holiday (the League for Spiritual Discovery). [3] [8] He won merit awards in 2016 and 2018. [4]
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