Michael Cooper
b.1944
Born in Dublin, Michael Cooper studied at Heatherley’s School of Art between 1969 and 1971, and then under Anthony Grey. Working in a variety of different mediums including marble, stone and bronze it is the nature of the material that lends itself to Cooper’s flowing harmonies of surface and so seductively suggests the power and grace of the natural world.
The reductive technique of carving means that mass and gravity are ever present and this is well-suited to the nature of what Cooper depicts. Indeed the essential character of his subjects are allowed to materialise through the slow process of chipping away at blocks of untractable stone. Irresistably tactile, Cooper’s surfaces attract the sense of touch as much as the visual caress.
Cooper has exhibited at a wide variety of venues since 1974, including Jersey and London Zoos, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and The Royal Academy. His ability to depict the sheer force of the animals and figures he sculpts has led to various large scale commissions, including a 4 ton Gorilla carved in Belgian Fossil Marble, a 5ft Bear also carved in Belgian Fossil Marble for Bicester Village, Oxfordshire, and a reclining figure carved in travertine marble for Covent Garden. Cooper is a fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.
