About
Adam Cooley is an American artist and designer, whose expansive repertoire includes painting, sculpture, film, fashion, interior design, and performance art.
His work is best known for its use of fantastic imagery and symbolism to illustrate abstract and esoteric concepts.
He has been featured in numerous magazines, newspapers, books, and documentaries. His works have been shown in galleries and museums around the globe and are held in private collections worldwide.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
ECD Christ - Adam Cooley Exhibition (1994), The Blue Nile Gallery, Osaka, Japan.
Anella - Adam Cooley Solo Exhibition (1998), Maronie Gallery, Kyoto, Japan.
Adam Cooley: Introspection (1999), Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan.
The Golden Woman - Adam Cooley Exhibition (2002), The Red Brick Warehouse Osaka, Japan.
The Mask (2012), Hankyu Department Store Osaka, Japan.
The Silver Key - Adam Cooley Solo Exhibition (2013), Gallery Chayamachi Osaka, Japan.
The Lost Empire - Adam Cooley Solo Exhibition (2014), Gallery Chayamachi Osaka, Japan.
Mechanical Animals - Adam Cooley Solo Exhibition (2014), Daimaru Department Store Kyoto, Japan.
ICoN - Adam Cooley Solo Exhibition (2015), Gallery Chayamachi Osaka, Japan.
111 Stars - Adam Cooley Solo Exhibition (2016), Gallery Chayamachi Osaka, Japan.
The Fairy Ring - Adam Cooley Solo Exhibition (2017), Gallery Chayamachi Osaka, Japan.個展「The Fairy Ring - Adam Cooley」（茶屋町画廊/大阪）
Sea of Love - Adam Cooley Solo Exhibition (2018) Gallery NAO, Roppongi, Tokyo 個展「Sea of Love」（Gallery NAO/六本木）
OIAF Oxford International Art Fair (2018)（Oxford City Council, Town Hall, UK.）
Flower of Love - Adam Cooley Solo Exhibition (2018) Hankyu Department Store, Osaka, Japan「Flower of Love」（阪急うめだ本店/大阪）
Flower of Passion - Adam Cooley Solo Exhibition (2019) Gallery NAO, Roppongi, Tokyo 個展「Flower of Passion（Gallery NAO/六本木）
Fairyland - Adam Cooley Solo Exhibition (2020) Artglorieux - Gallery of Tokyo, Ginza, Tokyo, Japan 個展「Fairyland」（Artglorieux (銀座）
Fairyland - Adam Cooley Solo Exhibition (2020) Artglorieux - Gallery of Osaka, Japan 個展「Fairyland」（Artglorieux (大阪）
Fabulous Animals - Adam Cooley Solo Exhibition (2021) Artglorieux - Gallery of Osaka, Japan 個展「Fabulous Animals」（Artglorieux/ 大阪）
UPCOMING SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Love - Adam Cooley Exhibition (2022) Kyoto, Japan
The Garden - Adam Cooley Solo Exhibition (2022) Artglorieux - Gallery of Osaka, Japan
Visual Art
Adam Cooley is an American artist based in New York and Osaka, Japan. He grew up in rural New York and had an early natural inclination towards art. Being an autodidact, Cooley is a highly inventive artist and uses various materials and processes in his works. He has worked in painting, sculpture, film, fashion, interior design and performance art. The influences and inspirations of his work are wide and fascinating and range from philosophy, alchemy, esotericism, nature, symbolism, medieval art, ancient Egyptian art and even contemporary trends such as fantasy and steam-punk. In addition to this Cooley is a highly prolific artist and holds regular exhibitions of new works. His works have been shown in galleries and museums and are held in private collections worldwide.
His works are mostly comprised of paintings and sculptures, are highly symbolic and focus on esoteric and archetypal themes. The use and juxtaposition of traditional figurative images, geometrical objects and numbers are key characteristics of his art. He also displays a deep fascination with materials and the natural transition from one state to another through natural processes of aging and rusting.
The figures in his artworks are reminiscent of ancient Egyptian art though not quite as flat. He does not use linear perspective which allows much more freedom to incorporate abstract and figurative elements together and further allowing him to juxtapose three-dimensional elements with 2-dimensional elements in order to add deeper conceptual meaning to his artworks. This also gives his works a very contemporary sensibility despite the great influence of traditional art forms.
The Ancient Egyptian art style, particularly Amarna Art, seems to influence a large number of his works. In particular his figurative works are reminiscent of this art style. Though his anatomy is more precise, the composition of these pictures are very similar with busy overlapping figures and a dynamic rhythm in the patterns and designs.
Probably the most recognizable characteristic in the paintings is his use of gold leaf. It is here that we can see the influence of Byzantine art. The images themselves are often fantastic in character but clearly symbolic. There seems to be an almost surreal element in the images but the symbolic aspect seems to cancel this out since there is no free fantasy involved and no dreamlike characteristic. These images seem to be very concrete in their symbolism. Indeed symbolist art clearly influences his choice of themes and images. Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt, with his copious use of gold, is highly similar in character.
As with the Symbolist art of the late 19th century his subject matter is often of religious mysticism, esotericism, and the erotic, however his imagery seems to be far more optimistic in its outlook on the world. Symbolist subject matter is often characterized by an interest in darker themes such as melancholy, evil and death.
The use of pure geometrical shapes in his art is fascinating for their symbolic depth. Squares, circles and triangles proliferate in his works. In one painting we see a plump woman holding a pig but her head is the pure geometrical shape of a circle. As a literal reference to the head as a round object it is a fitting place to substitute an abstract shape in an otherwise figurative painting. This archetypical use of pure geometry is seen regularly in his works.
Often geometrical shapes such as triangles or squares can be seen randomly placed throughout a work forming a design or pattern, however, their symbolic use is unmistakable for their conspicuousness.
Sometimes the shapes will be the subject of the painting itself. One series of works depicts geometrical shapes rhythmically placed over a blue sky of floating clouds. Though once again there seems to be a traditional painting of figures, in this case, the subject of the painting is the geometrical shapes themselves and not figures as we would expect. This is clever because in observing these paintings one doesn’t feel the cold abstractness that would be typical as in the case of an artist like Kandinsky where one can often be overwhelmed by the use of geometry and dizzy from its constant movement and interaction. And interestingly, though Kandinsky himself was very much using geometry to a symbolic effect, this seems to be lost in his works’ disconnectedness from personal experience. But it is precisely this sense of comfort and connectedness that Cooley’s paintings achieve by leaving familiar elements like trees or skies or human figures in paintings but even so allowing the geometrical symbols to be the true subject of the painting. We never seem to ask the question of why naturalistic images and geometrical shapes are juxtaposed; it just feels natural when observing and this gives full power to the symbolic and archetypal meaning being expressed in his art.
There is also a proliferation of images that portray plants with anthropomorphic characteristics or rather humans with plantlike limbs and body parts. This purposes another important theme in Cooley’s works: namely, that of transformation. There are many images like this. They tend to be highly symbolic and can be dramatic, somber or calm in their execution.
Nowhere is the theme of transformation more evident and clever than in Cooley’s use of materials. The paintings are constructed of various layers, materials and processes. After the preparation of the canvas there is a monochrome under painting. On top of this are various color glazes and the application of gold, copper, silver, zinc, and iron which is usually aged with a patina and other effects. The finished paintings change with time and some of the paintings require years before the desired effect of aging is achieved.
Another recurrent feature is that of numbers written on the canvases of the paintings. The numbers sometimes seem random but at other times follow strict mathematical formulas. There is also the use of handwritten words that augment and add to the meaning of the artwork.
In summary Cooley's art works illustrate his thematic motives not only through imagery and color but also throughout his whole use of technique and exemplify an alchemic process of transformation and inventiveness.