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Seeing the world from above while existing within it, this is how Cincinnati artist Courttney Cooper depicts his “awesome” city with meticulous detail.
Stemming from a deep love of Cincinnati, especially Zinzinnati and the Great American Tower, Cooper has spent countless hours intricately drawing each building in the city’s scope – all with his trusty ballpoint pens
Born in 1977, Cooper began drawing maps at the age of 9, according to an interview with Raw Vision magazine. Now, he works at Kroger, where he sources the paper he uses for his work.
While his love for Cincinnati is not new, his national recognition is. In addition to being featured in a number of private collections, Cooper’s work has also been featured in The Cincinnati Art Museum, The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, The Syracuse University Art Museum; The Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati; the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center in Covington, Kentucky; Western Exhibitions, Chicago; and in the Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Cooper has also been awarded the Wynn Newhouse Foundation Award in 2015.
Before he begins, Cooper knows exactly how far his map will span – the entirety of Cincinnati. While sketching each building, street, and a variety of vehicles, Cooper does not rely on references; instead, memory and intuition. As the work grows, individual sheets of paper are glued together to accommodate the necessary additions.
Each inch of paper is drawn over repeatedly, generating a sketch-like, rough texture for the piece. Any white space is filled with words referencing current Cincinnati events, music, and television shows. As the piece takes shape, it acquires a liveliness that truly reflects the city itself.
Courttney Cooper.mp4Through my analysis of Courttney Cooper’s Cincinnati Maps, I argue that, while his work is fundamentally visually driven by current interests, the underlying themes reflect a deeper contemplation of temporality and self-situation within the City of Cincinnati.
After my time with Cooper, I began to consider the similarities between his maps and satellite imagery. The map itself shows each building and street corner, but not the families living inside. Cooper’s work serves as a way to negotiate that balance. Each map visually shows the landscape, but it also includes something a bit more ephemeral.
Pointing to the map, Cooper states that we are all within its bounds: Visionaries and Voices, a Cincinnati-based inclusive arts organization where he works; his home; his friends’ homes; and me.
The maps feel as though they hold memories; they serve as a time capsule, a self-portrait of the city in the moments of its creation.
As small-scale aspects of daily life are contrasted with the large-scale surroundings. Each piece of the landscape is deemed equally important. By recording what would ordinarily be fleeting thoughts, Cooper blurs the boundaries between past and present. Song lyrics stuck in one’s mind that would ordinarily be disregarded after a matter of minutes are given a permanent display.
Additionally, Cooper states that he will update his maps to reflect changes in Cincinnati's structural makeup. When buildings are torn down, regardless of how old a map is, the artist states that he will make an adjustment to maintain accuracy.
As Cooper adjusts his maps to account for the renovations, the pen marking cannot be erased, as it will always be an inherent piece of this map, whether covered or not. This too plays on the theme of temporality.
Ensuring that viewers do not disregard the work of disabled individuals as an obsession or something symptomatic was a significant point of interest in my interviews. I saw this idea in the same vein as art therapists being unable to diagnose a patient based on their work. The repeated drawing of a map is not indicative of anything, but by analyzing the sentence fragments, additional illustrations, and pop culture references, we can understand aspects of Cooper’s identity that may not have been as apparent by simply chatting with the artist. The Cincinnati maps allow viewers to see into the mind of Courttney Cooper and may serve as a facilitator for conversation, but they cannot encompass the artist in his entirety.
Banner, Keith. “Courttney Cooper: World Builder.” RAW VISION, Raw Vision Magazine, 19 July 2022, rawvision.com/blogs/articles/courttney-cooper-world-builder?srsltid=AfmBOopT89it5ljEvdqR6AAXkhKJwWnUlJIDBdVqNMJ6aHj1smp9HZWB.
“Courttney Cooper.” Visionaries + Voices, www.visionariesandvoices.com/courttney-cooper. Accessed 4 May 2026.
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