Cynthia Cooper is a visual artist whose paintings use pattern, repetition and mathematics to create immersive works of art. Embracing contradictions, Cooper mixes straight lines and curves, uses ordered systems with additions of randomness, and contrasts solidity with motion to form compositions that vibrate with tension. Though each line retains its clarity and strength at any distance, an up close reading of her surfaces reveals that these works are unmistakably done by hand. Dissolving pencil marks and gently wavering borders invite an intimacy that invites viewers to be present.

Recent works employ shaped panels that Cooper assembles into varying constructions inspired by forms, color and graphic motifs of insects in nature as well as physical and mental spaces. Earlier work in her pools series engages this sense of immersion and freedom, while existing in both the figurative and abstract realms. Other series provide aesthetic patterns and only reveal deeper references after spending more time with them.

While her works reflect her interest in mathematics, color theory, branding and advertising, nature and current world situations, Cooper embraces wide reactions and interpretations and encourages an array of responses. The light-drenched work of joyful curves burst outward with exuberant color resulting in paintings that are calm and meditative and also evoke optimism and transcendence.

My artistic work has evolved from my time as a sign painter, designer, and lettering artist. What originally drew me to sign painting and lettering was the craft and the look and feel of letterforms. Words and language are fascinating, but communicating a message was less important to me than dreaming up new styles and color combinations. Covid closures and client cancellations is what brought me back to my love of painting. Unencumbered by the constraints of a marketing team or a design brief, I had newfound freedom to explore lettering at its most elemental. I dove headfirst into color and in the relationships of the form and structure of text and words. In turn, the work migrated further and further away from letters and into abstraction. The abstractions are based in lettering and draw upon my unique skill set as a printmaker and a hand letterer. Rather than convey a message, the letterforms are utilized as a means of mark making. The work is not meant to serve as a word search or an egg hunt. The structure of words, letters, and language create a framework for me to explore color, texture, pattern, contrast, figure, and material. Letter fragments and negative spaces provide a familiarity that ground the energetic and vibrant work. The convergence of different lettering styles creates levels of contrast brought back into harmony through the use of color. Conversely, typographic elements with inherent similarities may be repeated, layered, and distorted to a point of visual disparity. Texture building and mark making migrates away from chaos and traditional painting skills and into calligraphic territory. Muscle memory from years of practice can be hard to shake. The seemingly endless layers and color terminate as a field of chroma open to interpretation yet with substance of recognizable intimacy.