Cooper was born in Westport on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island in 1956, and attended Buller High School.
[1][3] Cooper studied under Neil Grant while at Otago Polytechnic and acknowledges him as a mentor.
[2] He then began creating heads and torsos of free-standing figures and relief sculptures.
[5] The installation, made up of more than 100 ceramic figures, cardboard cut-outs and drawings, was shown at the Dowse Art Museum in 2007 and then toured to Tauranga, Rotorua and Auckland.
[2] He won first place in the Norsewear Art Awards in 2006 for his work Snowy from Cavy.