Cincinnati MAP, 2010 64″ x 88″

Visionaries + Voices in conjunction with Western Exhibitions, Chicago, is proud to announce the Cincinnati Art Museum’s purchase of Courttney Cooper’s “Cincinnati Map”.  This piece was shown in connection with Courttney’s first museum show, “Cincinnati Everyday”; on view at the Cincinnati Museum of Art last May-September 2013. The piece will reside in the Museum’s permanent Drawing Collection, to be exhibited periodically as curatorial opportunities emerge.

“Courttney Cooper is one of the most ambitious and compelling artists working in Cincinnati,“ says Adjunct Curator of Contemporary Art Matt Distel.“ His work not only speaks to Cincinnati but also addresses more universal concepts about how people experience their environment. Courttney is an important artist making work that belongs in museums”.

About Courttney Cooper’s work:

Courttney walks the streets of the city, committing the places he visits to memory.  Culling observations for later cartographic translation in the studio, these “maps” take form on pieces of 8.5”x11” repurposed paper which he glues together creating additional pictorial space as needed. “Bic” pen line drawings of downtown Cincinnati buildings, roadways and activity undulate across the assembled surface.  During their construction, Courttney lives with each map:  He folds it up and carries it with him in his backpack as he works it toward completion.  Each completed map marks specific time by recording changes in Cincinnati’s landscape.  Translation of Cincinnati grows organically as both a manifestation of place and of process because Courttney’s practice, as an extension of himself, creates a living document.