Jayne’s work echoes her active imagination, love of figurative tradition and her need to express the moment—whether those moments are conjured from her past or are ones she is experiencing right now. While her style resonates with Lautrec and Modigliani, her sensibilities are utterly contemporary and in the popular culture. Her characters are more than caricatures. They are avatars born from a passion for art that started in her childhood. They are visualizations of her memories, observations, humor, sensuality and razor-sharp fashion sense.

Immediacy is at the core of her work. Although each figure has the same singular point of view, a consistent gaze, the takeaway from each environment she creates around each one is dramatically different from painting to painting. Ms. Cooper paints rapidly, as if there is a straight line between her feelings and the canvas. It’s that immediacy that gives her work its raw energy and emotional authenticity.