Michael Coop

Michael’s work nods to the passage of time, the impact of the elements on a surface, and the beauty of the resulting decayed image. Early Renaissance frescoes by Giotto or the panel paintings of Siena’s great painters – where today the surface has often flaked off over the centuries leaving a scarred, mottled, yet beautiful surface — are a definite reference point for Michael’s work. The variegated textures and patterns of ancient Persian, Turkish and Moroccan rugs that have disintegrated over time into beautiful shards of dyed wool, with contrasting colors and shapes and the voids created by the absent fabric, are also a touchstone for Michael’s compositional method in his current work. Michael’s work seeks to both reflect on these worn but beautiful surfaces as well as display in its textures and interruptions of the surface the artifacts of the mark making and painting process itself -- an intuitive, gestural process that weaves through layers of color to create a record of the working process.