After more than 10 years as an alternative cartoonist, Cooper has transformed himself into a painter. This is his second book of paintings and drawings (after 2003's Overbite
). An obsession with/ loathing of sex has always been the primary theme of his comics (his most disturbing graphic novel, Crumple
, shows a world where women kill almost all of the men—and why the male victims deserve exactly what they get). Knowing his graphic novels will make his paintings (masterfully rendered but cruelly distorted images of women) a little easier to understand. However, Cooper's work fits very comfortably within a popular strain of contemporary painting. Like John Currin and Lisa Yuskavage, Cooper brings classical painting technique to his sexualized female subjects. A scumbling technique gives his figures soft, hazy edges and his surfaces a particular texture. The book's centerpiece is a giant foldout of a large horizontal work, Cycle
. This mixed media work features dozens of female figures in a truly strange, natural cycle of birth, death and rebirth. It strongly recalls outsider artist Henry Darger's work with its scope and its combination of perversity and innocence. This book is handsomely designed and produced, but it would have benefited from some text—an essay, either by Cooper or a sympathetic critic—to help give the work context. (Feb.)
