Jayne Cooper

  Artistic passion almost never follows a straight and narrow path. It evolves and becomes more expressive and powerful with each brush stroke. Such is the journey for Los Angeles artist, Jayne Cooper. Her path from child prodigy to becoming an internationally recognized figurative artist has followed the twists and turns of a rich creative life. 

Jayne’s natural talents were recognized at a very early age when she won awards for her striking colors and figures. As a young adult, she traveled extensively in Europe, where her artistic sensibilities were shaped by her exposure to Picasso, Rothko and Henry Moore—influences that clearly resonate in her current work.

Moving back to Los Angeles, she became an in-demand cosmetologist for film and music celebrities, which also had a profound impact on the development of her signature figurative art. When she wasn’t shaping the images of her clients, she was making hundreds of drawings and paintings that translated her client work into the abstract visual vocabulary that shapes the work she is producing today. 

Jayne currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, and has been featured in numerous galleries and exhibitions.

About the Work

Jayne’s work echoes her active imagination, love of figurative tradition and her need to express the moment—whether those moments are conjured from her past or are ones she is experiencing right now. While her style resonates with Lautrec and Modigliani, her sensibilities are utterly contemporary and in the popular culture. Jayne’s path spans decades and includes a variety of media and genes, including figure and portrait drawings, collages, abstracts and others. The characters of Jayne’s most current work are more than caricatures. They are avatars born from a passion for art that started in her childhood. They are visualizations of her memories, observations, humor, sensuality and razor-sharp fashion sense.

Immediacy is at the core of her work. Although each figure has the same singular point of view, a consistent gaze, the takeaway from each environment she creates around each one is dramatically different from painting to painting. Jayne paints rapidly, as if there is a straight line between her feelings and the canvas. It’s that immediacy that gives her work its raw energy and emotional authenticity.