Jan Turner's

GALLERY WITHOUT WALLS ©

Art Online

Yellow Pair

Shoshana Cooper

1998

Shoshana Cooper has been painting for eight years. For the past several years, she has been studying at the Arts Students League with John Hultburg, a former student of Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still and Richard Diebenkorn and with Fred Mitchell, a native of Meridian, Mississippi, who was one of the pioneers at Coentes Slip in lower Manhattan with Agnes Martin and Ellsworth Kelly. Some of her early paintings were included in a show celebrating Women's History Month at the New York City Transit Authority and a recent painting was selected to represent Fred Mitchell's class in the 1998 -1999 Arts Students' League catalogue. Her work has been leaning toward the abstract for some time, although figurative elements remain to a varied degree. In November 1996, after seeing the Jasper Johns show at the Museum of Modern Art, she became intrigued by several of Johns' lesser known works which were labeled as "acrylic on plastic" and "ink on plastic". Since she was already using acrylic paint at that time, she decided to try using a clear plastic that is very similar to mylar. Immediately, she found that the paint moved more easily as it was applied and when she turned the work over to the opposite side, she discovered that the color was much more intense. She has since developed her technique so that the verso (the unpainted side) is always the finished product, although some paintings could have both sides displayed. The results have been quite striking, although there is very little resemblance to the Johns works that originally inspired her. She continues to experiment with new methods of applying and removing paint to create varied effects. She tries to make each work fresh and unique while maintaining continuity of style.