Jim Cooper (potter)

Cooper was born in Westport, New Zealand on the West Coast of the South Island in 1956, and attended Buller High School.[1]

He studied ceramics at the Otago Polytechnic School of Art in 1984 and 1989, but did not "get a ticket";[2] he returned and completed a Masters of Fine Arts there in 1999.[1][3] Cooper studied under Neil Grant while at Otago Polytechnic and acknowledges him as a mentor.[1]

Cooper has worked in ceramics since the early 1980; his earliest works in 1982 were vessels.[2] He then began creating heads and torsos of free-standing figures and relief sculptures.[1]

One of his major works is Sgt P, a ceramic installation loosely inspired by the album art of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles.[4] The installation, made up of more than 100 ceramic figures, cardboard cut-outs and drawings, was shown at The Dowse Art Museum in 2007 and then toured to Tauranga, Rotorua and Auckland.[4]

Cooper won the McSkimming Award in 1984. In 1996 he was a finalist in the New Ceramics and Glass Awards.[2] He won first place in the Norsewear Art Awards in 2006 for his work Snowy from Cavy.[4] His exhibition 'Peppermints and Incense' was held at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in 2008–2009.[4] He was named joint winner of the Portage Ceramic Awards in 2009 and was awarded the Premier Award in 2012 for his 30-piece installation Millbrook Holiday (the League for Spiritual Discovery).[3][5]