Art

Item Description

2' X 2', acrylic on canvas. "Pintemento XXII", 2021 by Arts & Sciences Board Chair Michael Coop

Pentimento XXII is the 22nd painting in a series that intends to represent in paint the images that result from the ravages of time and the elements on a surface, and the beauty of that decayed image. Think of the incredible early Renaissance frescos of Giotto and his peers -- the tempera has flaked off over the centuries leaving a scarred, mottled, yet beautiful surface. Or the seventeenth century Persian rug that has disintegrated into small but incredibly beautiful shards of dyed fabric, with colors and shapes contrasting against themselves and the voids created by the absent fabric. These images can match the beauty of anything. Even in your day-to-day life -- think of the iconic, once brightly painted Santa Fe gate, which has been damaged by rain, friction from branches and countless hands, and nicks and cuts of unknown origin over decades of use. These Santa Fe gates adorn postcards that circle the globe because that mysterious surface calls for your attention and understanding, yet offers few hints. The patina of these surfaces has a truth, a deep beauty, and a realness that are just not available otherwise. For me, these unexpected patinas of degraded surfaces represent the elusive nature of truth when ravaged by time -- yet they contain an incredible beauty that results from the process of decay itself. My paintings have pursued this theme for decades. My current Pentimento series seeks to explicitly imagine these stories through paint.

Michael Coop earned his BA with honors in Fine Arts from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee in 1978, and his Masters in Art Education in 1983 from Teachers College at Columbia University. Michael also studied painting at the Athens Centre for the Creative Arts (Greece). After fifteen years of life in Manhattan as a college administrator and painter, he moved to Santa Fe in 1993. Michael has regularly shown new bodies of work in alternative art spaces as well as in invitational gallery and Center for Contemporary Art group shows, juried Friends of Contemporary Art shows and more than a dozen Monothon print exhibits. His most recent show was at Pippin Contemporary Fine Art Gallery with Aleta Pippin, Ron Pokrasso and Diane Rolnick in 2014. Since then he had a child with his partner Emily, built a house with a beautiful studio and doubled the size of his company.

Michael Coop founded Coop Consulting, Inc. in 2002, as a small research, planning, facilitation and evaluation firm. The firm now has a staff of ten. Michael has led the firm in major initiatives in substance abuse and mental health prevention, intervention, crisis response, treatment, and recovery, and overdose prevention and harm reduction; and in early childhood services system development and evaluation. In addition to being a painter, Michael is a jazz and mid-century design fanatic. Michael and his partner, Emily Kaltenbach have a daughter Geneva who is a Stargazer at Arts & Sciences. Michael has been on the board of Arts & Sciences for more than a decade, and has been board chair for about half of that time.