Jim Cooper

Jim Cooper (born 1956) is a New Zealand ceramic artist.

Life Cooper was born in Westport on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island in 1956, and attended Buller High School.

He studied ceramics at the Otago Polytechnic School of Art in 1984 and 1989, but did not "get a ticket"; he returned and completed a Masters of Fine Arts there in 1999. Cooper studied under Neil Grant while at Otago Polytechnic and acknowledges him as a mentor.

Cooper has worked in ceramics since the early 1980s; his earliest works in 1982 were vessels. The installation, made up of more than 100 ceramic figures, cardboard cut-outs and drawings, was shown at the Dowse Art Museum in 2007 and then toured to Tauranga, Rotorua and Auckland. His installation at the Biennale consisted of more than 1,000 pieces. In 2013, he held a residency in Hualien, Eastern Taiwan, as ground breaker with the Taiwan Land Development Corporation. He won merit awards in 2016 and 2018. Peppermints and Incense. October 2008–February 2009: Dunedin Public Art Gallery.