Hollis Cooper - Working Space

Hollis Cooper's artist talk at Lawndale Art Center, January 28, 2011.

Hollis Cooper's work straddles the line between site-specific installation and painting, dealing with perceptual/ painterly/ physical space in ways influenced by ideas of virtual reality and the Baroque, where multiple spatial models coexist in harmony. She intends the work to not reflect the unified, Renaissance view of perspectival space, but instead as multiple spaces that are folded and spliced into one another, while reintroducing elements of Baroque excess and theatricality, such as intense color and other visual cues that break the two-dimensional plane. Her approach towards creating painterly space is also intimately connected with the viewer's ability to activate that space, which includes not only the flat surfaces of the painted elements, but the entire architectural space in which the piece resides. The viewer is encouraged to interact with the work in unconventional ways: movement, distance, and shifts in sight-line are rewarded as the piece engages with its environment.

About Hollis Cooper:

Born in 1976 in Jackson, Mississippi, Hollis Cooper grew up in New Orleans and Houston before moving to New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and California. She received her undergraduate degree with high honors from Princeton University, a Post-Baccalaureate certificate from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and an MFA from Claremont Graduate University. She received a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant Award nomination from the CGU Art Department in 2006, and in 2007 was selected for the Drawing Center's Viewing Program in NYC. Her work has been featured/reviewed in publications such as New American Paintings, Art Papers, and Alarm Magazine, and has been included in shows throughout the United States, most recently at AT1:Projects in Los Angeles, and the Riverside Art Museum in Riverside, CA. Hollis lives and works in the Los Angeles area.

holliscooper.com

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Lawndale Art Center
• Hollis Cooper