James Cooper

"A similar sense of calm informs James Cooper's three renderings of distant horizons. They manage to recall Hiroshi Sugimoto seascapes and color-field painting both."
Mark Feeney, arts writer, reviewer, and editor, Boston Globe

"In his unmanipulated, sweeping American landscapes - captured with transparency film - James Cooper's alluring compositions feature simple shapes and geometries with minimal detail, elevating his work into elegant abstract imagery."
Elin Spring, photography writer, What Will You Remember?

"Cooper's 'Surf Beach Station' is compelling.”
Daniella Walsh, art critic.

"The fact is that when one stands in front of one of James Cooper's works, one wonders in this era of computer graphics, if his images have been manipulated. The answer is no; they are unmanipulated.”
Antoinette Sullivan, Studio Gallery.

Suggestive of the American modernism Precisionism movement, the work is characterized by the reduction of compositions to simple shapes and underlying geometrical structures, with clear outlines, minimal detail, unexpected viewpoints and framing, and an emphasis on the abstract form of the subject.

American Precisionists focused on selecting subjects from the American landscape and regional American culture. M...

Selected Exhibitions

The Photo Review 40th Annual International Photography Competition, juried group exhibition, juried by Peter Fetterman, Peter Fetterman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, 2025.

Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts 10th International Call to explore the current state of contemporary photography, juried group exhibition, juried by Karen Haas, Lane Senior Curator of Photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA, 2024.

Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Architecture in Contemporary Art, juried group exhibition, juried Frank Escher of Escher GuneWardena Architecture and Ravi GuneWardena of Escher GunaWardena Architecture, Los Angeles, CA, 2023.
Escher is the editor of the monograph “John Lautner, Architect,” and serves on the boards of the John Lautner Foundation, the Julius Shulman Institute, and the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design. GuneWardena is currently the director of the Los Angeles branch of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana.

Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts 8th International Call to explore the current state of contemporary photography, juried group exhibition, juried Jessica Roscio, Director and Curator of the Danforth Art Museum at Framingham State University, MA,...