Download Jane Cooper's Artist Statement

Painter, printmaker, muralist and designer, Jane Cooper was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  Her mother was a portrait artist and her aunt a Chinese brush painter.  She received a BFA in Theatre from Denison University and is an active member of the Center of Contemporary Printmaking and the Katonah Museum of Artists’ Association.  Her art is represented in numerous galleries across the states, is part of corporate and private collections.  Selected work has been shown internationally in Ireland, England, Germany, Hong Kong and Spain. 

When introduced to the press and process of monotype, it was as if she had returned home. Within the structure of the plate and the press, possibilities are unending. Finding form in the simplest line of nature, the personal and emotional venue of life, monotype is a tool for layers and depth, for light and movement. It allows for the unintended stroke and presence of hand.

Jane worked in theatre as an actress, casting assistant, assistant to directors and a stage manager on Broadway.  "Painting is like theatre. In my life, the two are inexorably linked. They are worlds I move between. Process, character and light. Color, form and performance. 
For me, it's blue.  Not every blue, not blue in every work, but most.  I cannot leave it aside. It is the color pervading all memory.  The blue of delft, the murky blue green of the creek by our house, the lakes of Michigan, sapphire seas around New Zealand, the blues of my daughters' eyes. Water and sky. Water which my thoughts and my body crave.  Water which my imagination fears.  Losing sight of land.  Nature in abstract- abstracted representation.  My imagery seeks to delineate form and alters focus.  I explore mediums and composition to create an atmospheric sense of place and time."  

Jane lives and maintains a studio in Katonah and prints at The Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, Ct.