Clay artist at NorthTec's Kerikeri campus

Media release: NorthTec’s Kerikeri campus hosts rising star on global ceramics stage

NorthTec’s Kerikeri campus is currently hosting clay artist Jim Cooper as part of its visiting educator programme.

Jim has just been announced as the joint winner of this year’s Portage Ceramic Awards and is currently in based at NorthTec’s workshop using the studio space to create work for a group exhibition at the prestigious Martin Browne Fine Art gallery in Sydney.

Jim was formerly a tutor at Otago Polytechnic and is generously sharing his skills and experience with students and staff in the Kerikeri workshop space. “It’s been a real pleasure working with NorthTec arts tutor Richard Parker and alongside so many talented artists in the studio,” said Jim. “Having space to work and access to the studio at NorthTec is great.”

Jim’s interest in ceramics was sparked as a child when his mother, who was doing a night class in ceramics, brought clay home that she allowed Jim to use. Evidence of those early experiments still exists. In fact, while cleaning his studio in Dunedin out recently, Jim came across a piece of work that he had made in the 3rd form.

It wasn’t until the late 1970s that Jim again began working with clay. “There was a potter in everybody’s backyard then!”

In 1984 Jim did a diploma in ceramics at Otago Polytechnic but he felt that the traditional, Anglo-Oriental glaze work that was in vogue at the time wasn’t representative of what he wanted to do. “I wasn’t finding my own voice.”

The library at Otago Polytechnic and books about the work of ceramicists such as Milton Moon and Betty Wooden opened up a whole new world, liberating Jim to create the ceramics he envisioned but hadn’t seen around him. “I wondered ‘how do you do that?’ ‘How do you get permission to do that’?”

In 1989 Jim spent another year at Otago Polytechnic and started to paint on clay and use cut out shapes – two distinctive aspects of his work today. “One day the penny dropped and I started to make figures and paint them with acrylic paint. It seems simple but it was a long time coming.”

Jim’s big break came when some visiting curators from America saw his work in an exhibition of ‘backyard artists’ at the Dowse Gallery in Lower Hutt. They suggested that the Dowse give Jim a solo exhibition. The solo exhibition took place in 1997 and in 1999 Jim did an MA in Fine Art at the Otago Polytechnic Arts School.

Since then he has regularly won prizes for his bold, colourful work. Whilst such success provides some validation of the direction he is taking Jim is a firm believer that being honest in your work is the real measure of achievement. “That’s where art schools are important because they help provide students with the skills to be able to articulate that sort of honesty.”

The NorthTec visiting educator programme is a a win:win for himself and the students he is working alongside. “Students should be working alongside artists. They need to see that it’s not east, it’s never easy. Clay never falls easily from your fingertips. It’s about working towards it, getting close.”

He also believes that it’s an opportunity to demonstrate his belief that the artist has to show true commitment to the work that he or she is creating. “You’ve got to ‘know’ what you’re doing. You’ve got to ‘know’ it with your whole body.

First and foremost art is about articulating his personal values, he says. “My work doesn’t always consist of the right values for competitions. I’m looking for something in what I create for myself and those values change. It’s about finding yourself and honesty and generosity in statement making.”

Jim will be working in the Kerikeri studio until the end of November.

ENDS

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