About this Event
KP Projects is pleased to present PARACOSMOS by Los Angeles–based artist Cash-Cooper. This exhibition marks the artist’s first solo presentation with the gallery and introduces a visionary body of work that positions Cash-Cooper as a compelling new voice in contemporary figurative painting.
Cash-Cooper is known for heroic-scale depictions of humanity en masse, created within densely populated worlds that pulse with movement, conflict, and transcendence. Drawing inspiration from manga, video games, and cinematic world-building, his work is equally informed by the mythic cosmologies of ancient Egypt and Sumeria, where image-making functioned as a bridge between the earthly and the divine. At the heart of his practice is an intense desire to conjure a magical, autonomous universe. Paracosmos, names both the conceptual framework and the psychological engine of the artist’s practice; a descriptor of how these works come into being, how they operate, and how they ask to be encountered. Paracosmos is not an illustrative universe mapped in advance, but an emergent system—a world that reveals itself through the act of drawing and painting.
The paintings on view operate at the intersection of traditional Asian and Netherlandish genre painting and contemporary fandom culture. Cooper merges the compositional density of Brueghel and Bosch with the character-driven immediacy of manga, and avatar logic of video game culture. His scenes unfold as sprawling ecosystems of figures, each embedded within narratives that blur the boundaries between fantasy, identity, and reality. These imagined worlds reflect the emotional charge of conflict and communion, where the physical and spiritual realms coexist in a state of dynamic tension.
“Through painting, I conduct psychic anthropology, exploring a vast, undiscovered world beneath my subconscious. Each piece is an excursion into this space and I’m ecstatic to finally share what’s been revealed to me. “Paracosmos” is the first volume of a grand narrative, scenes describing ritual, worship, and wild transcendence.” - Cash-Cooper.
The artist's approach to drawing and painting is notably improvisational. Working primarily with gouache and ink on paper or wood, media known for their immediacy and resistance to revision, the artist embraces process as a form of discovery rather than premeditated design. Characters emerge instinctually, “as if unearthed,” and compositions expand organically. The final ink lines, laid down with vulnerability and candor, serve as a visible record of spontaneity and intuition.
This material choice stands in deliberate contrast to the hyper-controlled, digitally precise aesthetics often associated with contemporary manga and video game production. Where those worlds are meticulously planned and rendered, Cooper allows chance, imperfection, and physical resistance to guide the image. The result is a yin-yang relationship between structure and surrender, between the epic scale of world-building and the intimate unpredictability of creating detailed narratives using media where adjustments carry risk. His practice resonates with both ancient image-making traditions and contemporary modes of immersive experience.
Cooper’s work arrives at a pivotal cultural moment, as major institutions increasingly recognize manga as a serious global art form. Situated firmly within the fine art ecosystem, his rapidly unfolding cosmology invites viewers into a universe that feels at once timeless and urgently of the present.
Cash-Cooper has completed international fellowships in Singapore and Dalian, China, and has exhibited in Los Angeles, Singapore, and China. Born in 1990 in New York, NY, he received his BFA in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts and his MFA in painting from USC Roski school of Art & Design. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
KP Projects (Merry Karnowsky Gallery), 633 North La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, United States
USD 0.00
