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In this collection of work, Cooper presents us with a new Piedmont, in which the usual is transformed into the unusual, and in which he becomes the creator and protagonist of many diverse roles. In the first of these he plays the attentive and curious visitor of a vast, exclusive, but at the same time authentic “landscape exhibition”.
He then goes on to become the curator of that same landscape exhibition, carefully choosing which of nature's masterpieces to exhibit to the public. Only then does he take on the final role of the photographer reproducing these natural works of art. |
Cooper creates images of great dynamism, working around a perspective that is then developed on a “nadir-zenith” axis through different techniques, which slowly lead to the use of photography as the sole medium.
There are no monuments or famous mountains in Cooper's work: the Piedmont of non-locations represented is a territory which needs to be explored with close attention to be able to appreciate how original a discovery it is. Cooper enters the landscape through the front door, abandoning any preconceived visual ideas to concentrate on the essence of the landscape itself, which takes on forms, designs, and markings because man has willed them there. It is man's bewilderment before such natural beauty that makes these earth images so worthy of being represented.
Andrea Repetto |
