Artist: John Cooper

About The Artist

John Cooper was born in Kent England in 1938. He arrived in Australia as a young lad with his parents in 1948 and completed his education in Gippsland Victoria where his parents dairy farmed.

It was on a holiday to far North Queensland in 1976 that john discovered Port Douglas and apart from a 3 year sojourn at Mission Beach just South of Cairns has resided in Port Douglas ever since.

Painting for pleasure was never a consideration for John until retirement. Following  a career of 20years as a Real Estate Principal and Auctioneer in Port Douglas  John found time in retirement in 1999 to paint for pleasure. His early works were given to family and friends.

John is relatively self taught and Naive Art became a very natural progression. He has completed 5 large paintings of the Port Douglas Markets and all the activity that surrounds them on a busy Sunday morning.

Saint Mary's by the sea the little church that adjoins the market is one of John's favourite subjects.

Bold vibrant colours are John's Trademarks and a look on the gallery page will confirm that.

Today John paints mostly in Acrylic and in addition to his ongoing original paintings he has made many limited edition prints and some special edition reproductions.

Almost every Sunday John is at the Port Douglas Markets. Other originals  can be seen in the Candlenut Gallery, Macrossan Street Port Douglas.   

John sincerely thanks Artist Ron Edwards for the assistance and encouragement given to him.

After some lessons early in his career Ron suggested that John should paint in his own natural style and retain his Naive Art Style which John incorporates into much of his work