Ron Cooper’s art explores light, reflection, transparency, and color, through the medium of colored fluorescent lights, neon, and glass. His early Light Trap works are formed from many layers of polyester resin and fiberglass, sprayed onto and later released from a waxed glass mold. Light pouring into these constructions is made substantial by the refraction between the layers, transforming the captured light into both medium and canvas. (A major example, now owned by the Whitney, may be accessed in the “Gifts” section of the Foundation website). Cooper likewise developed a “Vertical Bars” series of works, originally executed in the 1960’s with natural lacquer and pigments derived from pearly Swedish fish scales. In this work from the latest iteration of the Vertical Bars series, Cooper joins two Plexiglas boxes with varied front or back surfaces layered with meticulously sprayed lacquer, resulting in a shifting and diffuse luminescence. As the day advances and the light evolves, the opacity of the work waxes and wanes: crystalline in the morning, diaphanous in the afternoon, sharp and solidified in the evening. Cooper has added an additional dimension by encouraging a variety of textures to form on the surface. Whether softly gritted, bubbly, or pebbled, these surfaces also transform as the viewer’s shifting perspective causes light to pool, reflect, or glide straight through the shallow ridges and dips. Each work in this new series is named for one of his many artist friends, in this case Chuck Arnoldi.
