LA pop artist COOP has new exhibit of his paintings in Culver City

Chris Cooper, a.k.a. COOP, has done posters for some of rock music's greatest legends, including Nirvana, The Sex Pistols, and Green Day. The L.A.-based pop artist is known for his rockabilly style. His work is filled with voluptuous vixens, hot rod cars, and devils – lots of devils. COOP's version of Satan is a wide-eyed one, often seen smoking a cigar. Alex Cohen recently caught up with him and asked how the devil thing got started.

"A friend of mine was starting a company to sell Zippo Lighters with different artists' art work on them and he asked me to be one of the first artists, and he suggested that I draw a devil for it. I did this image, and I did it very quickly — probably in thirty minutes or less – and I didn’t even bother to make a copy of it; I just mailed off the original art to him, and didn’t think about it. Actually, the original art ended up being lost for several years. Until somebody at Zippo found it in their files and mailed it back to me.”

Starting tonight, a new collections of COOP’s paintings are on display at the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City. That’s where COOP described a colorful piece called "THIRTEEN DEVIL." It’s a fair bit different than his usual demon.