Rychard Cooper - Visual Art
Music
Rychard Cooper works and teaches in the fields of sound design and electronic music. His visual art is an extension of these practices. The synthesizer has the ability to manipulate sound in ways that are acoustically impossible, creating textures and perspectives that do not exist in the real-world. Cooper has pushed his visual art in a similar direction, using optical illusion, ultraviolet light & holographic paper to play at the limits of perception.
Fascinated by the Op-Art movement in the 1960's, especially with the work of Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely, Cooper often experiments with geometric designs and fluorescent paint. The music of minimalist composers like Steve Reich & Philip Glass with their interlocking symmetrical patterns are also a big influence on Coopers work
In the late 1970's, Cooper was captivated by the rainbow refractions bouncing off the holographic bumper stickers that were suddenly everywhere. He found that he could buy rolls or sheets of "Space-Tape" for decorating skateboards, so he started a collection. This became easier in the 1980s when holographic gift wrap and gift bags became popular. Cooper now draws from a collection of thousands of different colors and patterns for his collages.