Craig Cooper

Pure Evil Gallery, London
29th Oct – … Nov 2008

Craig Cooper? Nope – I’ve not heard of him before either but any excuse for a trip to Pure Evil’s basement will do. The thing that immediately catches the eye, mainly due to the penetrating brightness shattering the drizzle-hanging post clock wind-back gloom is an awesome film clip installation.

A 20 minute looping film show is projected through a quartet of reflective glass mirrors arranged in a truncated prism to produce a mesmeric globe shaped kaleidoscope effect, and it’s not to its’ disadvantage that the video show includes Kate Moss in her White Stripes “Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” waifish and partially clothed pole dancing routine (“semi-naked” would only be written by page-view whores).

Who Craig Cooper is is unclear and whether he has any street pedigree apart from being known, obviously, to Pure Evil is not evident either but what we will say is if you are near Leonard Street, spare less time than it takes to have a half pint of beer to see this exceptional installation.

Craig Cooper also showed a sequence of small(ish) painted canvasses of an après la deluge post apocalyptic flood destroyed London. The orange skies speak of a recent or possibly on going armageddon while the dark destroyed landmark buildings with their absence of humanity relate to a doom destined world before Noah found his mission.

One hybrid eagle-girl haunts this landscape though her cut and paste bird head is a bit of slap dash collagery. The day after the show opened the pestilential elements that pour though the open sky of the Evil dungeon meant this landscape had to be relocated to an under cover part of the gallery, which is just a tad ironic for a vision of life after the downpour. The paintings are forgettable but check out the video installation, this is hugely WOW.

If you have your raincoat on and umbrella to hand, more pics of dampness and video fluidity here