Robert Cooper

Ceramicist

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A recent commission; a candlestick using a green sherd find from the village of Apricale, Liguria, where I was running a workshop. The candle holder is a mid European coffee cup with an English handle fragment, early 20th centuary. A blue slip teapot lid holds a medieval fragment of kitchenware. So not my usual London Thames finds but enjoyable to make.

 

 

155A Gallery 

155A Lordship Lane (off Bawdale Road) East Dulwich London SE22 8HX

A recent exhibition 'Happenstance' was a curated exhibition of Robert Cooper's imaginings through collage, timepieces that speak of the tides , of the making of London, its shipping, trade guild, and crafts, of fashion and taste, of waste, value, and material histories.

Robert continually assembles and reassembles, drawing attention to the potency of fragments, their being-there-ness as well as their perpetual incompleteness. There is a fluency that comes from an acute knowledge of materials and their histories as well as a fascination with the wider contemporary visual environment.
 
Making through restless invention – reflected in his kaleidoscope assemblages - the works are eclectic, jaunty, suggestive. While some come together quickly, others can take years, yet Robert offers all of these fragments the potential to be made whole again.
 
Resulting sculptures are disorientating and potent. Thick green glass. Bottlenecks. Clay detritus from the workbench. Broken figurines. Soft-paste porcelain. Jug handles. Trinkets. Pipe stems. Bin ends of glaze. Discontinued ceramic transfers. Moorish tiles. There is, at the same time, the perfect synchrony to this rabble of things, often discovered while mudlarking on the Thames forshore. These pieces are a judicious combination of past and present – not streamline or rational, but rather off-key. It is the discord between these elements, these histories-in-pieces, that sings.
 

Online curated gallery

MIAR Ceramics & Arts  2025

Courses

City Lit ceramics courses

Wallpiece 2024, photo Michael Harvey

 

Ceramic Review

Robert Cooper, Candlestick. Photo: Michael Harvey

"For Robert Cooper the past is also ever-present. Incorporating pottery shards from the Thames foreshore into his, often whimsical, works, echoes of other times offer indications of previous use, of lives lived and stories told.

As key components of his work, they remind us how much a simple fragment can recall. But he is also keen to emphasise that, while his work connects us with the past, it also offers us a starting point for new memories and other stories."
Ceramic Review Jan/Feb 2021

Ceramic Review  (Jan/Feb 2021)
Article: Discarded Influences

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