Today it has become difficult to define what is natural and what is artificial, as human artefacts have now constructed a supernature and cities are the evident translation of this structure. The Urban Jungle series refers to this chaotic but lively relationship, to which the artist attributes great conceptual power and visual impact. Starting from fragments of reality, natural elements forgotten by man and worn by the passage of time, Cooper gives them new life, creating compositions that are chaotic yet imbued with a sensitive and delicate inner logic. This artistic research allows the work to show its full expressive power, which is not destructured but stratified through the reflection of the artist who builds a visual poem by overlaying materials that are tangible and conceptual at once.

Mark Cooper was raised in the United Kingdom, where he earned his degree. In addition to working as a freelance photographer based in London, he also completed reportages abroad, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa. In 1993 he left London, where he had lived for twelve years, and moved to the province of Alessandria in Italy’s Piedmont region. Here he opened a studio and specialized in aerial photography, as a result of which he published works in important volumes devoted to the natural heritage of the Monferrato area. He devoted his photographic research to the Earthscapes – L’arte del Paesaggio project, which was the subject of essays by Elisabetta Longari, professor of Art History at the Brera Academy, and Aldo Gilardi, a well-known art historian and founder of the National Historic Sound Archive; in 2010 Foto Spiegel, Sony’s official magazine, devoted an eight-page spread to the project. With the title Monferrato Earthscapes, the project was exhibited a number of times at various venues in Piedmont between 2011 and 2014. Over the years, Cooper has investigated different artistic approaches, such as the Urban Jungle and Elements of the Next Dimension series, contaminated with a powerful abstract slant. In 2014 he participated in the 4th MIA – Milan Image Art Fair in the “MIA Proposal” section with a monographic stand, and was contacted by the National Association of Wine Cities to stage a large solo exhibition at the Universal Forum of Cultures, promoted in Benevento by UNESCO. In 2015 Cooper won the Davide Lajolo – Il Ramarro Prize, thanks to his extraordinary work of interpretation and artistic transfiguration of the Monferrato area.