Ziv Cooper

Ziv Cooper (b. 1973) is an Israeli artist, and a world traveler, an architecture graduate influenced by the forms and rational structure of urban landscapes. These combinations of surfaces, materials and geometric compositions, as well as the relationship between light and its reflections, are his main sources of inspiration. Cooper works in oil on canvas, in bold, rapid brushstrokes, which stain the surface, superimposing definite and decisive signs made in ink. Depending on the time of day or weather conditions, his palette may contain fantastic grays, intense blacks and blues, then bright gusts of pink, yellow and orange. 

The urban landscapes are rendered with intimate tones and dynamic traces. Many compositions are inspired by the most hidden spaces and facades of the city, where the reflected buildings, the colors of the street lamps and the neon signs shine in the rain or are illuminated by the sun. Each work represents a city with intensity and personality, the time of the work is the time and the unique situation of a special moment of the day.

The common denominator of the paintings is the light. About his use of light, Cooper says, “My paintings arise as instruments capable of modulating and fragmenting the light beam, the chiaroscuro impresses on the canvas city views that vanish into perspective and turn into dreamlike scenarios. As in a dream, I recompose images of the cities I’ve passed through, transcribing on canvas the snapshots of moments in which natural and artificial light highlights the characteristics of the urban space.”