Rupert Copping Inverness-shire, United Kingdom
Painter and writer. Primarily an abstract painter with occasional forays into landscape and figurative work. Mediums used are mostly oil and watercolour.
I started painting late in life. After living in Spain for fifteen years my wife and I and our three children relocated to the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Previously I had learnt the trade of candle making and I opened a candle workshop on Skye. It went well enough to provide a humble living. But my heart was not in it. It failed to quench the creative thirst. So for four years I attended a local art class at night. Then, in the 1990’s an art centre was established on the island. This art centre has now unfortunately closed, but in 1999 I submitted a painting to its annual open exhibition. My painting won a first prize and was sold. Encouraged, the following year I took a chance and converted my candle workshop into my own art studio/gallery.
Candle making taught me about pigments and colour and the art lessons about composition and drawing, so although an art college degree would have been beneficial I never felt its absence was such as to hinder me from becoming a painter.
I learnt on the job. I started out painting landscapes in oil and watercolour. I have tried acrylics and recognize their advantages but somehow I never felt I could extract from them the depth that I wanted. For painting surfaces I have used mostly canvas or paper. But sometimes I use wood panels. These are more suitable to certain techniques I employ to drag or scratch the oil paint on the surface in order to create texture. Another reason is that I sometimes venture into making constructions out of mixed materials and these require a rigid surface for adherence.
I opened my own gallery/studio in Broadford, the second largest conurbation on Skye, in 1999. The scenery on Skye has always been its major selling point. Visitors mostly buy paintings of the landscape, which is what I started out painting and selling. But for me art is a vocation. My internal desire, or hunger, is such that it leads my mind to explore what is possible with the tools I have at my disposal. Because of this, and in spite of the fact that I needed to earn a living, it was difficult for me to confine myself to painting landscapes for the visitor market.
Presently, and perhaps from a desire to tell stories, I became focused on painting colourful narrative pictures about local life in a sort of magical realism style. Such paintings proved to be unexpectedly popular. In time I acquired a few collectors. But although the paintings were in demand and I was well paid I began to run out of ideas and I was not comfortable churning out repetitions. After a few years with one particular collector I reached the end of the road and I had to stop. I was exhausted. My hand simply refused to paint another picture in this particular style.
There is a space in me, though, that is still drawn to figurative/narrative painting. And to this day, if the mood takes me, I will return to it; though now, as I grow older, the painting is darker and more deeply entrenched in my personal inner world. However, the focus and the main thrust of my career is towards an abstract art based on the landscapes I perceive around me; be these landscapes internal or external.
But I had to close down my studio/gallery before I could find the space to explore the possibility of producing abstract work. About ten years ago I converted an old shed next to our house into a studio and I now work there. I mostly confine myself to paint abstract pictures with a reference to the landscape around me, be this internal or external.
In this sense my work is becoming more disciplined and thoughtful. I believe one of the principle things that draws me to abstract art is its lack, if not of pretension, of a message. It appears to the observer, unclothed, naked; it does not represent anything other than the materials of which it is made up. Because of this it allows the observer to detach her/him self from the burden having to be human. For once the observer does not have to think about human situations or emotions. The observer can enter a state of quiet contemplation and with luck find that the painting she/he/they contemplates offers a moment of transcendence, of meditation, of uplift. The question then becomes how to attain this. In looking for the answer I find that I am not content just to throw paint about, if ever I was. It is very difficult to throw paint about successfully. On the other hand it is confining to stick to rigid geometric shapes. So I have a sense that my path is somewhere in the middle: Abstraction that contains both elements of spontaneity and elements of discipline. This is where the textural aspect in many of my paintings come in. Texture allows me, when necessary, to insert spontaneity into a surface that would otherwise be smooth and flat. In the end, I suppose, my painting is all about playing with colour, shape, and texture.
CV. Brief Sumary
1999 to 2010 Proprietor of The Rupert Copping Gallery, Broadford, Skye. Exhibitions in Scotland: Mertz Gallery Edinburgh. An Tuirean Arts Centre Portree, Eden Court Inverness, Plockton Hall Plockton, Inchmore Gallery Inverness, and many other galleries. Featured in ArtWorks, The West Highland Free Press, and other journals.
2010 to present The Rupert Copping Studio Torrin Skye. Exhibitions in A Talla Dearg Gallery Skye. Capileira Alpujarra Spain. Balmacara Gallery National Trust (2019/2020) Scotland. Lemond Gallery Glasgow (2020), and others. Founding member of The Bridge Art Collective (www.thebridgeartcollective.co.uk) and member of NUA Scotland. Works exhibited and held in the Lemond Gallery, Glasgow. Works requested (before pandemic) by the Charles Chamot Gallery, USA. Works in private collections worldwide. Recent journal entries: West Highland Free Press. Glasgow Herald, Critics Choice (2020) and others. Recipient of the Mellow Special Prize Award 2020.
Author of novel Before The Dawn, Skylight Press 2013.
