the delightful work of diana cooper...

I was directed to the work of Diana Cooper by Clare Mitten (see ANALOG at Riflemaker post). Cooper's fantastical mixed media drawings and constructions are created from low fi materials such as felt tip pens, foam, vinyl, velcro and rubber - creating multi layered and textured surfaces, and installations that reference nature, technology and her imagination.  Colourful forms and shapes, often in repetitive forms, create almost decorative pattern that often develops into whirly-gig, carousel like chaos at points and then falls back into a fairground like facade.  What I do enjoy in particular about Cooper's work - aside from its tactility and engaging form - is her nod to instinctual mark making, which is evidently confessed in her artists statement on her website.  And of course, the use of markers, fine liners, sharpies, paint pens and felt tip pens (a shared love of mine) - which Cooper's describes as 'doodling'.

Diana Cooper's works below are of a permanent installation called 'Out of the corner of my eye', 2005, and a mixed media construction, Speedway (2000-2003).

Out of the corner of my eye, 2005

'Out of the corner of my eye', Diana Cooper

'Out of the corner of my eye', Diana Cooper

'Speedway', Diana Cooper

'Speedway', Diana Cooper

'Speedway', Diana Cooper

'Speedway', Diana Cooper

ANALOG, Riflemaker

AZTECH_Backup, 2010, Mixed Media
Clare Mitten

AZTECH_Toppal (Red), 2010, Mixed Media
Clare Mitten

I very much enjoy the moment when you discover an artists work whose concerns and processes link very closely with your own.  The current exhibition, ANALOG, at Riflemaker presents the work of two artists whose practices explore modes of documenting and reversing technological developments.  Richard Nicholson's photographic practice recorded scenes of professional film darkrooms around London in 2006, documenting of 204 in working practice. When he returned to the project three years later, only 8 professional darkrooms were in business.  The large scale photographic prints document the move from mechanical to digital through still-lives of workrooms soon to be out of action. The series of archival shots document not only working processes with all the physical equipment that goes along with it; but the ghostly physical ephemera of those lives that operating the photographic equipment from the beginning of the printing process until the end - a workforce that has since been retrained or dissipated.

Analogue - Last One Out, Richard Nicholson

In the downstairs gallery, Clare Mitten presents paintings and constructed cardboard objects, where she has 're-analogued' computer and phone technology into awkward three dimensional forms.  Her work carries an aesthetic of conscious amateur, with clearly left evidence of the making process through glue stains, misshapen edges and unsymmetrical forms.  The cardboard models are laboriously built from low tech materials - an application of materials that is also adopted in paintings of such forms -to create abstracted and colourful tactile recreation of these 'perfected' visual objects that we use constantly on a daily basis.  The surface of the card used to create the sculptures is dull in colour and finish; entirely opposite to the glossy feel of any technological gadget.  Similarly, Mitten's paintings of reconstituted and collaged technological objects are painted with what appears to be poster paint on stretched black paper; reminiscent of the budget sugar paper we learn to paint on at school.  The cheery bright colours stay faithful to aesthetic of technological development, and her slow processes, littered with intended mistakes, return our gadgets back to a timeless, humorous beginning.

The exhibition ANALOG at Riflemaker, runs until 5th March 2011.