Andy Cooperman has been creating jewelry for more than twenty-five years. He is a master of his art, a meticulous metalsmith with an engineer’s love for detail and fabrication. His works are intricate, layered and complex, inspired by science and the mystery of realms unseen. “I remember as a boy opening an Edmund Scientific Supply catalogue to the page featuring paramecium cultures. The text described an entire world-invisible to the unaided eye- whirling away in a single drop of cloudy pond water. The notion that a complete universe could exist, literally at my fingertips, changed the way that I looked at everything…”

That early encounter with the microcosmic continues to influence his art. Cooperman gives form to an imagined world by mixing and combining disparate elements and shapes. Some suggest insects and microbial forms. By mixing metals such as high karat gold, silver, bronze and a metal alloy called shibuichi, he imparts his works with a unique textural and tonal richness. This is complex work, technically and conceptually. Cooperman is reaching beyond the ornamental; when he discusses his work, he is speaking of ideas and experience.

“The visual vocabulary that I choose is grounded in science.  It relies on the combination and juxtaposition of industrial and naturally occurring forms such as accreted skins and rivets, or strapped and braced skeletal forms, to create metaphors for growth, decay and repair….”

Lovers of fine studio jewelry are aware that, often, the most interesting work succeeds as sculpture as well as ornament. In Andy Cooperman’s new pieces, we see this born out. A group of porcupine rings, displayed on wood blocks, feature quills 8” long. Other works, like his group of stylized chess pieces, leave the realm of jewelry entirely and foray into pure sculpture.

His fascination with lenses and circumscribed “ocular fields,” is developed in other works from this group. The perfect circle provided by the scope delimits one’s view, contains and makes safe the contents. One of his favorite pieces, “Cholla,” named for the cactus, features metal “fangs” attached to the inner wall of the circle.  Fierce and aggressive looking, they are safely enclosed inside its ring.

Cooperman’s work has been published in numerous articles and is featured in Dona Meilach’s definitive book, Art jewelry Today.