North Carolina painter Matt Cooper is a storyteller, a narrator of the dark side of the human condition. His shocking and provocative paintings are an attempt to shine a light on society's indifference to corruption, cruelty, suffering, hypocrisy and ignorance. His oil paintings are like headlines from the newspaper: mass genocide in a church, a baby found in a dumpster, a schoolyard massacre, a lone figure on a bridge.
Cooper has a degree in Photojournalism from UNC-Chapel Hill (1982) and it is with a photographer's eye that he captures his images, using light and dramatic angles to help us witness his stories. He has been compared to the American social realists of the Great Depression: Thomas Hart Benton, George Bellows, and John Sloan. He is an African American artist who paints all people with equal eloquence and empathy.
There are few artists today painting the dark realities of our human condition. Cooper is among the heroic few. His carefully composed paintings are the perfect vehicle for his messages and few viewers will remain unchanged by the experience. Matt Cooper has been represented by Gallery C exclusively since 1987. For more information about Matt Cooper, please click this link to read his vitae.
