Thomas Joshua Cooper (b. 1946 California) Lives and works in Glasgow
Two works by Thomas Joshua Cooper as part of a series that explores the extremities of the landscape at the points of civilisation that are located furthest north, west, south and east on the map of Scotland.
Inspired by the 19th century photography tradition, he has used selenium to create brown and gold tones in these ‘black and white’ photographs. The artist uses a plate camera made in 1898 and the long exposures are in part due to the age of the equipment.
The Swelling of the Sea Furthest West - The Atlantic Ocean Point Ardnamurchan, Scotland, 1990. The Westernmost Point of mainland Great Britain
Northmost - The Atlantic Ocean, Strathy Point, Sutherland, Scotland, 1991 - 2011. Near the Northmost Point of mainland Great Britain (pictured below)
"I work on the margins, on the periphery of populated and cultivated land-spaces. I am irresistibly drawn towards quiet, towards the far edges of a place. The directional positioning of boundaries compels me, magnetically. In such places, expectation and anticipation (history and memory) gather and collide, forming, for me, new, richer, translucent spaces of levity and gravity." Thomas Joshua Cooper
Artist Biography
Born in San Francisco, land and seascape photographer Thomas Joshua Cooper lives and works in Glasgow, where he became founding head of fine art photography at Glasgow School of Art in 1982.