Bicycles overflowing with flowers, colourful café tables and more patterns than ever before: welcome to the world of American painter Andrew Cooper, whose latest exhibition at Maddox Gallery is his most personal yet. Ahead of ‘In Good Company’, opening at Maddox Street on 20 November, we talk to the artist Cooper about finding happiness in life’s simplest pleasures, how those moments find their way into a Cooper painting and why he hopes his work helps others find peace in their own memories.
You might expect an artist whose paintings are so full of colour, pattern and detail to seek inspiration in equally vibrant places. But American Contemporary artist Cooper is just as likely to find his next idea in something he notices on a bike ride, a trip to his local cafe or a memory that has stayed with him for years, leaving his imagination to take care of the rest.
Ahead of ‘In Good Company’, his fifth exhibition with Maddox Gallery, which opens at Maddox Street on 20 November, we caught up with the Indiana-born artist to talk about his creative development, the influences behind the latest body of Cooper art that will be on show, and why, after all his recent travels, he has come to appreciate the simple pleasures of home more than ever.
Who Is the Artist Cooper?
Andrew Cooper, known professionally as Cooper, is an American Contemporary artist and still-life painter from Evansville, Indiana. A colourist with a fearless approach to pattern, Cooper is known for his vividly rendered paintings filled with flowers, plants, vintage stereos and clashing prints, depicting richly decorated interiors and landscapes inspired by his own life and memories.
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COOPER AT A GLANCE Full name: Andrew Cooper. Born: 1992, Evansville, Indiana. |
From Evansville to Mayfair: How Andrew Cooper Became an Artist
Artist, Cooper, sitting in front of his work
Cooper’s interest in art began early. At just seven, Cooper wrote in his diary that he wanted to become an artist. Encouraged by his grandmother, who bought him drawing books, he spent hours in his bedroom copying pictures and inventing scenes of his own.
It was sport that dominated his teenage years, however, and he initially enrolled at college intending to study business. An elective art class during his first week changed everything. Within days, he had transferred to art school, immersing himself in painting, drawing, etching, sculpture and graphic design. The discipline he had developed through years of competitive sport had found a new outlet.
After graduating, Cooper began painting large-scale murals, developing the bold floral designs that quickly became his signature and collaborating with brands including Coach, Adidas and Vans. “At the end of the day, everyone loves flowers,” he says of the motif that has remained a constant in his work. Yet after several years, he began to feel creatively restricted by the expectation that he would keep painting the same subject.
Moving from murals to canvas gave him the freedom to explore more personal ideas. One of his earliest paintings depicted a stereo from his grandparents’ basement, where the family would gather during the holidays to listen to music, eat and spend time together. Its enthusiastic reception encouraged him to delve further into his own memories for inspiration.
In December 2019, after living in Miami and Los Angeles, Cooper returned to his hometown of Evansville, Indiana. Surrounded by successful artists and the constant distractions of city life, he felt the need for a change. “I wanted to get away from everything and just go find myself,” he recalls.
The timing proved fortuitous. When the pandemic arrived three months later, Cooper was able to devote himself entirely to sketching, painting and experimenting. “I didn’t have any distractions,” he says. “I knew I wanted to go as deep as I could.” It was a period of intense creative exploration, as he began to paint what he describes as “me, my life, my world and what’s meaningful to me”.
Inside a Cooper Painting: Record Players, Roses and the Joy of Everyday Objects
Cooper, Where the Music Grows (2026)
Music is a constant in Cooper’s Indiana studio. It might be something upbeat that encourages him to paint faster, or, as has been the case for much of the preparation for ‘In Good Company’, a jazz playlist that has been on repeat for two and a half months. What is playing on his stereo on any given day can influence the way he paints, with the tempo and rhythm affecting how he applies colour to the canvas. “It all comes out in the brush,” he says.
Cooper finds patterns everywhere, from the pages of Architectural Digest to the dresses worn by his wife, Tabitha. He photographs designs that interest him, then plays with their colours and proportions on his computer before working them into his paintings. Recently, he has found a new source of patterns much closer to home: his three-month-old daughter Ivy’s wardrobe. Some of the designs in ‘In Good Company’ began life on her tiny clothes, although, as Cooper points out, “You’d have no idea that what you’re seeing is actually a baby’s outfit.”
With as many as 50 different colours appearing in a single Cooper painting, finding combinations that work en masse is no small undertaking. For ‘In Good Company’, three artists have been particularly influential: David Hockney, Henri Matisse and Stanley Whitney. Cooper has kept books of their work open in his studio throughout the making of the 22 paintings in the exhibition, taking inspiration from their different approaches to colour and composition.
REGISTER YOUR INTEREST IN ‘IN GOOD COMPANY’
American abstract painter Stanley Whitney, known for his paintings of loosely arranged blocks of colour, is an especially useful reference when Cooper is deciding which tones to place alongside one another. Hockney’s influence is apparent in his growing interest in landscapes, particularly the British artist’s interpretations of the Yorkshire countryside. In Where the Music Grows, Cooper introduces the cornfields of his native Indiana for the first time, painting them in bands of purple, orange and yellow that recall Hockney’s high-intensity palette.
Leopard print is another favourite, appearing on everything from lampshades to upholstered furniture. Cooper is drawn to its connection with the natural world, but there’s a simpler reason for its frequent appearances. “I just love that pattern,” he admits. His enthusiasm for it is shared at home, where Tabitha has her own collection of leopard-print dresses and Ivy already has a cheetah-print outfit.
EXPLORE COOPER’S MODERN STILL LIFE ART FOR SALE
Four Shows with Maddox: From Wild Noise to Velvet
Cooper’s Wild Noise exhibition at Maddox Gallery
Cooper’s relationship with Maddox Gallery began with an Instagram message. He had recently returned to Indiana and was still finding his feet as a painter when Maddox reached out to him about his work. At the time, Cooper had only completed around 10 or 15 canvases. “It seems like we’ve been together forever,” he laughs, reflecting on a partnership that began with his sell-out London debut, ‘Wild Noise’, in 2022.
A second exhibition, ‘Wild Life’, followed in Gstaad, Switzerland, in 2023, but it was a six-month stint as Artist in Residence at Maddox Gallery in London the following year that Cooper considers a turning point in his practice. Working from Maddox’s gallery in Shepherd Market, he found himself painting in full view of passers-by, which he likens to being in a fishbowl. “I was used to painting in a studio where no one could see me,” he says. “I could sit back, I could make mistakes.”
Initially, the attention made him nervous. Accustomed to working alone in the studio, Cooper was very conscious of the strangers stopping to watch him paint. But over the following months, he began to relax into the experience. “When you pick up a paintbrush, there’s really nothing you can do wrong,” he says. “You just have to trust your instincts and paint.” Eventually, he found himself so absorbed in his work that “it was just me and the painting, and none of the outside world mattered at all.” Looking back, he considers his artist residency one of the most impactful moments of his career.
His London surroundings left their mark on his paintings, too. Inspired by the energy and atmosphere of the city, Cooper began introducing deeper blues and maroons into his colour palette. The work he produced during those six months was presented in ‘A Closer Look’ (2024), his third exhibition with Maddox.
By the time Cooper began work on ‘Velvet’ (2025), life had changed again. He and Tabitha had bought a house together, and decorating their new home provided a new source of inspiration. “It was about where my life was at that point, filling the home with our own personal things that we both enjoy,” he recalls. The exhibition explored domestic interiors in greater depth, with patterned furnishings, flowers, stereos and objects from their shared life finding their way onto his canvases, among them the couple’s own cheetah lamp.
What’s Next: Cooper’s New Exhibition at Maddox Street
Opening on 20 November, ‘In Good Company’ is Cooper’s fifth exhibition with Maddox Gallery and his most personal to date. The paintings reflect an eventful five years in which he has travelled extensively, settled into a new home with Tabitha and become a father. Alongside his signature domestic interiors, there are bicycles, a bird’s-eye view of a café and a poignant recreation of his late grandmother’s home, each with its own story to tell.
The title ‘In Good Company’ came from Cooper’s realisation that some of his happiest memories have very little to do with where he was or what he was doing. “If we’re in Italy on a big vacation, or if we’re just riding a bike down a dirt road going nowhere at all, it’s kind of the same feeling,” he explains. “What matters most is being in good company and enjoying life together.”
Cooper, Summer in a Basket (2026)
Those bicycle rides have become a recurring subject in his latest body of work. Cooper and Tabitha own old-fashioned beach cruisers, which they rode around Evansville during the summer while waiting for the arrival of their daughter. Introducing bicycles into his paintings was something of an experiment, and Cooper initially wondered how they would be received. Happily, his concerns proved unfounded. “Collectors have really taken to the bicycles,” he says.
In Best Friends, two bicycles stand side by side against a blue clapboard wall, their baskets overflowing with flowers. It’s a touching portrait of a relationship, conveyed entirely through objects left behind. For Summer in a Basket, Cooper takes an entirely different perspective, placing the viewer in the saddle, looking down at a basket filled with flowers and Tabitha’s bandana. Looking back on those summer journeys, Cooper sums up their appeal: “This is our life right here, right now. We’re just riding to the end of the trail, going nowhere, enjoying the time we have together.”
Cooper, Welcome Home (2026)
Welcome Home takes Cooper back to a place that holds some of his happiest childhood memories: his late grandmother’s house in Indiana. His grandparents lived just down the road, so he could cycle over whenever he liked. “No matter what happened, it was always going to be a good day at Grandma’s,” he remembers fondly. “You want to watch TV and eat cookies all day? Sure, you can!”
The painting recreates the entrance hall, with its staircase, green shelf and patterned wallpaper, inspired by a design that had remained in his grandmother’s kitchen for some 30 years. The first to encourage his interest in drawing, he still misses her deeply. Welcome Home allows him to return, through painting, to a house where he was always at peace.
Cooper, Cafe de Paris (2026)
Every Cooper painting offers something different, but Café de Paris is a particular favourite of the artist. In it, he experiments with a new perspective, looking directly down onto a green table laden with croissants and macarons. It recalls the afternoons he and Tabitha enjoyed afternoon tea in London, lingering over conversation and taking in their surroundings. Cooper has reimagined those experiences in his own way, combining his memories with an idealised Parisian setting. “I just love the colours,” he says. “To me, everything is just perfect in this painting.”
Elsewhere, stereos and furniture appear in the middle of wildflower-filled landscapes. Cooper describes these compositions as “dreamy”, bringing together some of the experiences that have brought him the greatest happiness: listening to music, riding bicycles with no particular destination in mind and spending time with the people he loves. He imagines them as an idealised world where all these pleasures can exist in one place.
Despite the new subjects, there is plenty in ‘In Good Company’ that admirers of Contemporary artist Cooper will recognise. Vintage stereos, extravagant floral arrangements and exuberantly patterned interiors are all present, nowhere more so than in The Leopard Chandelier. With its blue-and-orange striped conversation pit piled high with cushions in competing prints, zebra-patterned rug and chandelier with leopard-print shades, it’s a glorious clash of colours and patterns, and quintessential Cooper.
Travelling may be a rich source of inspiration, but for Cooper, there’s no place like home. “You can go and see the most beautiful things in the world, and you’re like, this is great, and now I’m ready to go back home,” he laughs. In his Indiana studio, he can revisit the places he’s been, interpreting their colours and atmosphere through his own memories and imagination.
For all their vivid colours, clashing prints and intricate details, there is so much life and happiness in a Cooper painting, and a sense of contentment that comes from knowing exactly where, and with whom, you want to be. Ultimately, Cooper hopes that people looking at his works will recognise something of their own lives in them. “I want people to find their own peace in the places they’ve been and the memories they’ve made,” he explains. “To remember their favourite moments with their favourite people.”
Discover Cooper at Maddox Gallery
Cooper in front of Maddox Shepherd Market during his Residency in 2024.
With five exhibitions in as many years, American artist Cooper has established himself as one of Maddox Gallery’s most popular names. Explore Cooper art for sale and discover more about his work at Maddox Gallery.
For a glimpse inside his Indiana studio, new works in progress and life beyond the canvas, follow I Am Cooper (@iamcooper) on Instagram.
Register your interest in ‘In Good Company’ to be among the first to discover Cooper’s new paintings, or contact a Maddox art advisor to enquire about available works.
