Fred Coppin captures an eternal sense of optimism in his work through a distinctive combination of amplified colour and playful forms, in which he exaggerates the world into a permanently dream-like state that allows us, as viewers, to linger in a moment of utopian calm. Coppin’s paintings are tied together by an uplifting impulse to dissect, exaggerate and reassemble the world around us into its most hopeful state.
Light and colour play a significant role in Coppin’s work. This stems from his interest in photography and, more deeply, the emotional and aesthetic power of sunlight. Light is indicative of the positivity Coppin tries to convey and the way light operates in straight lines draws back to his interest in geometric design.
Coppin’s calming motifs and refinement of complex images into simple shape and colour, treads a careful balance between energy and quietness. He aspires to find new ways of simplifying core elements of the world around him, creating methods and codes to transform all of the details of life; the sound, the feeling, the weather, even the conversations, into a painting.
There is invariably light in Fred’s paintings, both literally and metaphorically. The places he paints, while being palpable, embody a sense of the exotic, and an element of the fantastical, they are like the meeting place between fantasy and reality.
Fred graduated from Oxford Brookes University School of Arts with a fine arts degree. After graduating, Fred developed a career in brand marketing before turning full-time to fine art painting. In 2018 he was selected for the Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London, winning The Artist Magazine Award. In 2019 his self-portrait was selected for the Ruth Borchard Self-Portrait Prize exhibition at Piano Nobile Kings Place, as well as a painting shown in the 2019 artsdepot Open.