Robert Cooper, british ceramist of consolidated fame and success, has been exhibiting for many years in both the United Kingdom and other countries.
His studio, where he works and collects all the materials that he uses in his pieces, is in the characteristic Vanguard Court area in south London. His work is based on the reinterpretation of various objects and materials that give his pieces a powerful narrative content.
He is fascinated by the persistence and transformation of objects, and, as starting-points for his works, he often uses found objects, such as ceramic fragments that he picks up on the banks of the Thames, and other recycled items infused with their own life and a preceding function.
He recovers and re-uses a variety of materials, including clays, oxides, glazes, waste materials from his lessons, ceramic transfers, printed motifs from industrial culture, and even parts of preceding works, recombining them and creating a new narrative that gives the final object new life, with additional, multiple layers of meanIng.
GROUP SHOWS
2017
Lost and Found, Oxford Ceramics Gallery, Oxford
Ceramic Art London, Central saint Martins, London
Collect, with Officine Saffi, Saatchi Gallerie, London
2016
Open competition, Officine Saffi Gallerie, Milan, Italy
2015
Leaving Home, Contemporary Applied Arts, London
London Craft Week, Contemporary Applied Arts, London
2011- 15
Ceramic Art London, Royal College of Art, London
2014
SOFA CHICAGO, Art Fair, Officine Saffi Gallery, Chicago, USA
2013
MAD for TEA, Fortnum & Mason, Picadilly, London, UK
Ceramic Art London at the Royal College of Art, London, UK
2012
Maggs Beneath the Covers, Maggs Bros Antiquarian Booksellers, London (ACE funded project), UK
Ceramic Art London at RCA, London, UK
2011
British Ceramics Biennial, Stoke on Trent, UK
Tea for Two, Officine Saffi, Milan, Italy
It’s What’s on the Outside that Matters?, Newport Museum Art Gallery, Gwent, Wales, UK
International Ceramics Festival, Aberystwyth, Wales, UK
Woodbury Studio Gallery, Woodbury, Greenway, Woodbury, Exeter, Devon, UK
City Lit Diploma Staff Exhibition, Rochester Art Gallery, Kent, UK
Ceramic Art London at RCA, London, UK
Press Night Exhibition, Contemporary Ceramics Centre, London, UK
2010
Reclaim!, The New School House Gallery, York, UK
Focus, CAA, London, UK
2009
In the Vanguard, Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
Ceramic Art London at RCA, London, UK
20 years of the City Lit Diploma course, Barrett Marsden Gallery, London, UK
2008
Material Difference, Robert Cooper and Stella Harding, Rochester Art Gallery, Kent, UK
2004
S.O.F.A, Chicago, USA
Artist in Focus, Contemporary Applied Arts, London, UK
Group Show, CLAY Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
S.O.F.A., CLAY Gallery, New York, USA
2003
S.O.F.A., British Craft Council, Chicago, USA
ART into Education, Contemporary Applied Arts, London, UK
2002
S.O.F.A. British Craft Council, Chicago, USA
2001
World Ceramic Exposition, 2001, Korea
2000
Firing Imagination Ceramica Britanica, British Council travelling Exhibition, Brasile
SOLO SHOWS
2013
Teaboxes and textile design – Ibridazioni narrative, Officine Saffi Gallery, Milan, Italy