‘Lots of people's lives are thrown together in my
pictures, but there is also a strong sense of separateness. I find it
fascinating that, in the busy lives that everyone leads, people have a sense of
their own time, their own moments of reverie.’
Eileen Cooper studied at Goldsmiths College, London (1971 to 1974) and
the Royal College of Art, London (1974 to 1977). For many years she was a
Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College (where she was made a Fellow in 2006)
and City & Guilds of London Art School, before becoming Head of Printmaking
at the Royal Academy Schools, where in 2011 she was the first woman to be elected
Keeper.
Well known as a printmaker and painter, her stylised work is rooted in a
figurative tradition and characterised using bold linearity and formal
composition. Her images are imbued with playful narratives and her protagonists
are often surrounded by artefacts and imagery that testifies to the tension
between quotidian and romantic concerns.
Eileen Cooper's first solo exhibition was held in 1979 at the Air Gallery, with
subsequent shows throughout the UK, including Blond Fine Art, London, Artspace
Gallery, Aberdeen, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester and Artsite Gallery. Since
1988, regular exhibitions of her work have been held at Benjamin Rhodes Gallery
and at Art First, London and more recently at Brook Gallery in Devon where a
permanent collection of Eileen's work resides.