Ron Cooper
American, 1943
Ron Cooper (born 1943) grew up in Ojai, California, and studied at Chouinard Art Institute with fellow students Mary Course and Douglas Wheeler, beginning his career in the late 1960s in Los Angeles. Greatly influenced by the modernity and mass culture of his surroundings, his work owes allegiance to the Southern California “Light and Space” and “Finish Fetish” movements of the 1960s. Cooper’s work, and that of the Light and Space and Finish Fetish artists, combined local car and surf culture, aerospace and plastics technology, and an interest in light and altered perception to create works that emphasized environment over object and the visual over thought process, crafting objects that celebrated non materiality. His early work focused on two forms, his square, shallow poured-resin constructions he called “Light Traps” and rectangular “Vertical Bars” of Plexiglas, upon which smooth, translucent mica-laden pigments were applied. Cooper also worked in the medium of colored fluorescent lights, neon and glass, exploring light, reflection, transparency and color, creating environmental installations which also addressed the theme of the perceptual and experiential over the material. By 1973, Cooper was a well established artist whose work had already been included in numerous solo and group shows, with pieces in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum and LACMA. In 1982, Cooper moved to Taos, New Mexico, establishing a studio there and continuing with his work. Some 40 years later, Cooper reprised his early “Vertical Bars” forms in a series of Plexiglas bars that make use of the enhanced refractive properties of contemporary surface pigments. Cooper’s multi-layered technique, some 30 coats of lacquer applied to the face of the bar, causes perceptual shifts as the viewer moves around the work; colors appear, blend and disappear, with transitions impossible to detect. He continues to explore the theme of shifting and altered perception, and today, is also known for spearheading the production and importation of craft mezcal with his own highly lauded and successful brand, Del Maguey.
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