Biennial 2008 - Dana Cooper

New York-based Bermudian artist Dana Cooper was educated at the Parsons School of Design where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts. She has illustrated her own series of children’s books and her work is included in the Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art. In recent years she has held painting residencies at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and the Vermont Studio Centre, Johnston, Vermont.

Artist's statement

"My work is generated by the influence of having grown up in a ‘post colonial’ Bermuda and the icons that existed in my childhood. I use a visual vocabulary made up of different kinds of material, such as newsprint, and fairy tale imagery from another time.

With these elements, I am able to create a setting or vignette, in which I can paint freely. The goal is to provoke thought and trigger memories.
As I paint, I build, placing canvases, pieces of paper, and objects next to one another, along the walls or surfaces or separately.

I paint in gesture, sometimes following a narrative. My work ranges from large to small-scale pieces. I like to explore the relationship between ideas and form, using line to express observation and emotion.

By weaving between figurative representation and abstraction, I move more freely within the restrictions and limitations of both genres.
The narrative evolves while I am painting. But, the elements I collect, such as bits and pieces of local newsprint, photos, images to delineate an item, are definite choices made beforehand. Some of the colours are predetermined as well, but all of it progresses as the pieces and layers develop. The idea of a narrative starts with one icon image, be it a carriage, tree, or bird and progresses from there.
The line is a continuum, a thread throughout the work."

Recent highlights

2006 - Night of a thousand drawings, Artists Space, NY, NY (curator Tomoko Ashikawa)
2006 - School of Visual Arts Residency Show, NY, NY
2006 - AG Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Group Exhibition (curator Tomoko Ashikawa)
2006 - Equity Residential on view, NY, NY
2005 - School of Visual Arts Residency Show, NY, NY
2005 - Appleby, Spurling & Kempe, Solo Exhibition
2004 - Bacardi Limited Biennial, Bermuda National Gallery
2003 - The Seven Deadly Sins, The Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard
2003 - Caribbean and Latin Art, Long Island, NY, Group Exhibition
2002 - Working the Land, The Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard