Canvas
7May

Northeast Ohio art openings and events, spring/summer 2021

Posted by: CanvasCLE Categories: Art News
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On deck

Event details provided by the entities featured. Compiled by Becky Raspe.

Editor’s note: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, museums and galleries may change how exhibitions are able to be seen and might not allow in-person visitation. Visit their websites for updated information regarding exhibition visitation prior to visiting. 

Valley Art Center

50th anniversary programming | Through May 21

Valley Art Center in Chagrin Falls is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and with it will exhibit work by its alumni and begin a community art project in May.

On view through May 12, the center is hosting an exhibition celebrating alumni who have gone on to successful artistic careers over its first half century. “Illustrious Alum” will feature the work of artists who got their start at VAC, such as Judith Brandon, a mixed-media landscape artist; H. Craig Hanna, a landscape and figurative painter; Jeremy Galante, an animation artist; Kate Kaman, a sculptor; and Judy Takacs, a figurative painter.

And for the community art installation, internationally known fiber artist Carol Hummel will wrap the trees in front of the VAC building in color. “Fantastic at Fifty – Valley Art Center’s Anniversary Community Art Project” asks volunteers to create crocheted circles to encase the trees in vibrant spring colors. The display will be installed from May 15-21, and will be accessible to the public throughout this year.

Valley Art Center is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. The center is at 155 Bell St. For more information on upcoming programming, visit valleyartcenter.org.

Above: “Love Denied” by Dale Goode. Oil, latex and enamel on canvas, 96 x 1.5 x 62.75 inches. | Photo / Aireonna McCall

HEDGE Gallery

Dale Goode – “Paintings and Printmaking” | Through June 18

Cleveland artist Dale Goode’s work will be on display as a satellite exhibition at HEDGE Gallery at the 78th Street Studios in Cleveland’s Edgewater neighborhood. The exhibition, which features some of Goode’s more recent paintings and prints, employs both figurative and abstract works on paper, as well as some of his older, never-before-seen paintings on canvas. Goode’s work is created with layers of bold color and expressive mark making, using varieties of paint including oils, enamel, acrylic and latex combined with other found materials. He also works on large-scale sculptures that influence his painting and printmaking.

Shown in the Suite 215 Gallery, hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays, and noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays, or by appointment. 

HEDGE Gallery is at 1300 W. 78th St. Visit it online at hedgeartgallery.com. For more information, contact Hilary Gent at hilary@hedgeartgallery.com or 216-650-4201.

Above: “still waters run deep / fall in your ways” (2021) by Shikeith. Site-specific installation commissioned by moCa Cleveland as part of “Imagine Otherwise.” | Photo / Field Studio.

Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland

“Imagine Otherwise” | Through June 6

As part of a three-location installation, “Imagine Otherwise” is a group exhibition on display at moCa Cleveland that expresses the boundlessness and fierceness of Black imagination and love, despite ongoing anti-Black violence and demonstrations. Using Christina Sharpe’s book “In the Wake: On Blackness and Being,” the show features work by artists Shikeith, Imani Dennison, Amber N. Ford and Antwoine Washington. The multi-media exhibition, which also has work on display at ThirdSpace Action Lab in Cleveland’s Glenville neighborhood and Museum of Creative Human Art in Lakewood, spotlights Black pathways to self-determination and collective liberation through various artistic media. Organized by La Tanya S. Autry, founder of the Black Literation Center and Gund curator in residence, the moCa installment features work by Shikeith. Dennison and Ford’s work can be viewed at ThirdSpace and Washington’s will be at Museum of Creative Human Art. 

moCa’s hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. The museum is at 11400 Euclid Ave. in Cleveland’s Uptown District.

For more information about the show and its locations, visit mocacleveland.org/exhibitions/imagine-otherwise.

Above: “Sadie” by Karen Novak for “Furtography: Another Show for the Dogs.” | Image courtesy of Cleveland Photo Fest.

Cleveland Photo Fest

“PHOTOTHON 2021” | May 1 – June 30

After debuting in 2019, Cleveland Photo Fest is returning with PHOTOTHON 2021. The show will feature seven photography exhibitions: three drawn from international submissions, three of local talent and Cleveland Photo Fest’s own “I Identify As: Portraits in Black and White,” a Cleveland portrait project of 60 white, Black and those who identify as “other” photographing portraits of each other. The other exhibitions are “Furtography: Another Show for the Dogs,” which features photos of man’s best friend – dogs; “Deja Nude: Not Another Nude Show!” featuring nude photos; and “Dear Diary: Show Us Your Secrets,” featuring photos by women looking to visually share their favorite secret. Additionally, there will be a high school student exhibition, interpretive photography of poetry and an exchange show with photographers from Kerala, a state in southern India. The exchange will be from 6 to 9 p.m. May 26 at BAYarts, 28795 Lake Road in Bay Village.

PHOTOTHON 2021 will be housed at Bostwick Design Art Initiative, 2729 Prospect Ave. in Cleveland. Gallery hours will be noon to 8 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Visit it online at clevelandphotofest.org.

To read more about Cleveland Photo Fest’s inaugural year, visit canvascle.com/developing-landscape.

Above: The 2019 Alumni Exhibition at CIA’s Reinberger Gallery. | Image courtesy of The Cleveland Institute of Art.

Cleveland Institute of Art

“2021 Alumni Exhibition” | June 4 – Aug. 13

The Cleveland Institute of Art and the CIA Alumni Council will present the 2021 Alumni Exhibition this summer in Reinberger Gallery. This juried exhibition will showcase work by CIA alums from different graduating years and artistic practices, and it will offer viewers the opportunity to learn more about the college and its influence on art in the region.

Emily Carol Burns, a multi-disciplinary artist who has curated exhibitions across the U.S. that highlight visual art from emerging artists, will serve as juror for the Alumni Exhibition. She is also the founding editor of Maake Magazine – an independent, artist-run publication – and is an assistant professor at The Pennsylvania State University.

CIA’s Reinberger Gallery is at 11610 Euclid Ave. in Cleveland. Visit
cia.edu/exhibitions for the most current visitor policy and check
cia.edu/alumniexhibition for updates regarding public programming.

Above: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her husband, Marty, with their daughter, Jane, in 1958. This photo is on view with “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage. | Photo / Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage

“Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” | Through Aug. 29

A traveling museum exhibition, “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage explores the life of the late Supreme Court justice, known simply and commonly by her three initials, who passed away at age 87 due to complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer on Sept. 18, 2020 after almost 30 years on the bench. The exhibition, created by the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles that opened in October 2018, is based off a book focused on Ginsburg’s personal and professional life by journalist Irin Carmon and attorney Shana Knizhnik. The exhibition is broken into seven parts of RBG’s life, each named after lyrics from the late hip-hop artist the Notorious B.I.G. 

The exhibition is included in regular museum admission and is open during regular museum hours, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. Tickets are by advanced registration only.

The Maltz Museum is at 2929 Richmond Road in Beachwood. Visit it online at maltzmuseum.org.

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12Feb

5 Questions … with Maeve Billings

Posted by: CanvasCLE Categories: 5 Questions
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Each year, the Cleveland Institute of Art celebrates student work while also providing an opportunity for students to organize a major exhibition on their own.

This year is no different, as CIA’s 74th annual Student Independent Exhibition will open with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Feb. 14 in Reinberger Gallery, 11610 Euclid Ave. in Cleveland.

The exhibit, organized entirely by students, this year is juried by artists Cannaday Chapman, Ellen Donnelly and Christopher Gentner.

Maeve Billings

Maeve Billings, committee chair for the exhibition and a painting major to graduate in 2021, told Canvas about the process for selecting jurors and some of her favorite aspects of the two-semester project and exhibit. 

The 74th annual CIA Student Independent Exhibition will open Feb. 14. As a committee member, when did the exhibit begin to take shape and what was the process like? Was this your first experience organizing such an endeavor?

We started working on this exhibition back in August. We had our first meetings as a group and began planning then, but it didn’t really take shape until we selected our three jurors. The personalities of the jurors and their tastes are what really make each iteration of SIE unique. This year we had three artists from completely different backgrounds and ways of working, and the exhibition reflects this diversity.

This is my first time ever attempting to organize a show like this. CIA builds opportunities to practice exhibition organization into the curriculum, but mostly those are semester-long projects managed by a minimum of 20 students. The SIE committee is only three to four students, trying to manage a project that spans two semesters, multiple administrative departments in CIA and three jurors from different locations. It’s a significant undertaking, but a challenge that I was really excited to take on. 

What I realized early on is that SIE is all about communication. As committee chair, I balanced the rest of the student committee, Nolan Meyer, E.T. (Erykah Townsend), and Addie Lutzo, as we worked with CIA’s student life, institutional advancement, marketing and business affairs offices. I was also in charge of reaching out to potential jurors and planning their visits to Cleveland. And of course, connecting with the student body about jurors and submitting work was also a major component. All in all, SIE became a balancing act of tracking different moving parts and making sure they came together just right for the opening.

What was selecting jurors like? What kind of factors did you consider for making the ultimate decisions?

SIE is completely student run, and that extends to juror selection. We ask the student body of CIA to propose jurors and then later vote on them. As the committee, we screen potential jurors based on their professional experience to make sure that they can successfully give an artist talk, speak to students in a studio visit format, and jury a show with a large amount and variety of submissions. We then work with the list of jurors selected by the student body to find the best based on the students’ votes. This selection process guarantees that SIE is unique and fresh every single year, with different groups of students picking artists and professionals that one might not expect normally. 

What were the most difficult and rewarding parts of the process?

One of the most difficult parts of SIE is the actual jurying process. SIE is unique in that students participate not only by submitting work to be juried, but in the managing of the show as the committee. The committee is present while the jurors select work, though we are not allowed to comment or participate. Therefore, we watch not only our own works be selected or not, but also pieces made by our fellow students. It was emotionally challenging watching people you care about not getting selected, but it’s a good look at what will happen behind the curtain of other exhibitions.

One of the most rewarding parts of SIE was hearing the students talk about their studio visits with the artists. SIE is all about what we can give back to our peers and school community, and being able to give positive and special experiences with professional artists to other students is very personally rewarding. 

Do you have work in the exhibit? If so, what?

Yes, I do. My painting, “Party Time,” was accepted into the show, which is very exciting. I had a painting selected last year, too, and it was a nice surprise to be in to the show two years in a row. “Party Time” deals with complicated feelings surrounding aging, and references memento mori symbols present in historical still life paintings.

“Party Time,” by Maeve Billings (2019). Oil on canvas, 30 x 20 inches. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Two of my fellow committee members also had work selected. Nolan Meyer’s painting, “de_lake,” is a painting of a sunset from a glitched video game that compares the practices that make up both art forms. 

“de_lake,” by Nolan Meyer (2020). Acrylic on canvas, 30 x 50 inches. Photo courtesy of the artist.

E.T.’s mixed media piece, “It Was a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” examines pop culture by bringing it into the realm of fine art and asking the viewer to reconsider the divisions between low and high culture. 

“It Was a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” by E.T. (2020). Polyester tassel pom poms, acrylic on panel, 46 x 36.5 inches. | Photo / Maeve Billings

Is there any piece by another artist in the exhibit that is particularly special to you?

One of my favorite pieces in the show is actually by a friend of mine, Elias Betchik. His piece, “Basin,” is a vessel formed from a single sheet of copper and it’s the largest single piece he’s made to date. He experiments with materials fearlessly, and in this piece he used magnets and sand with a high iron content to form the spiky protrusions coating the outside of the vessel. Hidden in tiny depressions on the surface are small precious stones, and the interior of the vessel glows with a transparent green enamel coating. Elias rewards the viewer’s close attention with little surprises like this, and his focus on surface materiality creates a tactile experience unique to his work. 

“Basin,” by Elias Betchik (2020). Copper, vitreous enamel, cubic zirconia, 9 x 15 x 15 inches. Photo courtesy of the artist.

The exhibit is on view through March 15. 

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10Jul

5 Questions … with Nikki Woods

Posted by: CanvasCLE Categories: 5 Questions
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The director of Reinberger Gallery at the Cleveland Institute of Art talks about “There’s no basement at the Alamo,” the 2019 CIA Alumni Exhibition. The opening reception is from 5 to 8 p.m. July 12. The exhibition runs through Aug. 16.

What can visitors look forward to from the 2019 Alumni Exhibition?

Visitors can look forward to engaging with an exciting, diverse array of artworks that are captivating to see and representative of a fun, upbeat atmosphere. In its second year, the Alumni Show is being hosted for the first time in the Reinberger Gallery. As an alum myself, I am thrilled to be a part of hosting an exhibition as an extension of Reinberger programming that continues to support the work and careers of fellow alumni.

What can you tell us about this year’s curator, moCa Cleveland chief curator Courtenay Finn, and what she brings to this year’s show?

This year offered us the unique opportunity to work with a curator who is also a CIA alum. Courtenay has brought with her a wealth of curatorial experience from her time as curator at Art in General (in New York City) and at Aspen Art Museum (in Aspen, Colo.) to her current appointment as chief curator of moCa Cleveland. She understands a part of CIA’s identity, particularly what it means to be an artist. Courtenay has treated this process like she would any other curatorial project — as an extension of her practice. This is exciting because it gives the audience a closer look at one of the many different creative careers that our alumni pursue.

Will you shed light on how the title of the exhibition, “There’s no basement at the Alamo,” ties in with the artwork selected?

The title comes from a line from the beloved cult classic film “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” (1985). If you’ve seen the movie, then you know it’s an endearing, wild, atmospheric road-trip romp full of heart and not short on spectacular imagery. The artwork in this show evokes those qualities of content and visual sensibility.

“Master Painter” by Susan Breitsch courtesy of the Cleveland Institute of Art.

CIA offers a wide range of majors. To what extent are they represented in this alumni show and how might that have informed Finn’s decision-making process?

While Courtenay was reviewing the work in the beginning stages of the process, she was captivated by the breadth and quality of the submissions. In order to proceed with the difficult selection process, she naturally began organizing works into thematic groupings — and from that, the curatorial theme organically emerged. This curatorial approach became the thematic structure for her selection process.

In what ways does the alumni exhibition showcase what CIA has to offer as an institution?

I think you’ll find that there are many artists in this show who work in interdisciplinary ways. When walking through the exhibition, you’ll see one-time fiber majors who work in the design field, painters who make sculptures, photographers who make mixed-media collage. I think it shows how CIA has always supported cross-pollination between makers and thinkers of all kinds.

Lead image: “The big curtain” by Karolena Kuhn courtesy of the Cleveland Institute of Art.

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21Nov

Lane Cooper | Fragmenting the familiar

Posted by: CanvasCLE Categories: Artist Features
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Lane Cooper says she’s always working on multiple works of art at any given time, as evidenced by the contents of her studio in Cleveland’s Waterloo Arts District.

Lane Cooper distorts everyday imagery, transforming the ubiquitous into the experiential

Story and photography by Michael C. Butz

A core facet of Lane Cooper’s artistic viewpoint came into focus 10 years ago during one of her darkest hours, sitting bedside watching her mother succumb to a severe stroke brought about by complications from cancer.

“It took a little while for her to die,” Cooper says. “She was in hospice, and there were all these other folks around, and they all seemed to be having these very modified experiences of reality. I knew what my mother was experiencing was very different from what I was experiencing even though we were in the same room at the same time.”

Playing with perception is a significant element of Cooper’s art. Her artistic repertoire is wide-ranging, but her most prominent pieces are layered paintings defined by the horizontal banding she employs; the result is experiences that shift depending on one’s perspective, and images that evade full grasp. What may seem clear when viewed from afar breaks up as one approaches for a closer look.

“Pop Life – MTM” by Lane Cooper, acrylic on canvas, 12 x 12 inches, 2016. Image courtesy of the artist.

“Pop Life – MTM” by Lane Cooper, acrylic on canvas, 12 x 12 inches, 2016. Image courtesy of the artist.

Further, the banding serves as a sort of signal interference that interrupts a viewer’s relationship with the recognizable.

Cooper regularly culls subjects from pop culture and the entertainment industry. A piece she was working on in
mid-October in her Waterloo Arts District studio depicts the house from “The Waltons” TV series, which came on the heels of a painting based on Mary Tyler Moore’s house. Both are part of the “Dream House” series she’s building, and both portray only fractions of their familiar forms.

Dreamlike qualities are intrinsic to Cooper’s art. She says those moments between wakefulness and sleep, when reality bleeds into fantasy, inform her work.

“I kind of think we’re all always on that spectrum,” she says. “Sometimes we’re more tuned in to the physical world than others, but it’s always being filtered through our perception in a way that changes it significantly.”

Achieving that visual experience – evoking a hypnagogic state of consciousness through material and palette – is Cooper’s endeavor.

Accidental art education

Cooper applies with precision strips of masking tape to a piece she’s working on that depicts the house in “The Waltons.”

Cooper applies with precision strips of masking tape to a piece she’s working on that depicts the house in “The Waltons.”

Cooper grew up in Hamilton, Ala., in the northwest corner of the state.

“Elvis’ baby-sitter was from my hometown,” she says, referring to Elvis Presley, whose hometown of Tupelo is about 50 miles west of Hamilton.

That isn’t even her best Elvis story. Cooper’s father and his best friend had a few drinks one night decades ago and successfully placed a long-distance call to Presley’s U.S. Army base in Germany.

“Because they had a Southern accent and they had the right area code, (the Army) put Elvis on the phone,” Cooper explains, “and my dad, of course, hung up when Elvis said hello because they didn’t expect him to answer.”

Her father, J.E. Cooper, was a pharmacist, and her mother, Katie, worked at the store in which the pharmacy was located. Both came from large, poor, rural families consisting of generations of subsistence farmers, loggers, railroad workers and elementary school teachers.

Katie Cooper provided her daughter artistic inspiration, allowing her to play with paints at home when she was as young as 3.

“I decided when I was a little kid that I wanted to be an artist,” Cooper says. “Most folks go through phases of wanting to be something else. I have never wanted to be anything else. And when I have gone through other ambitions, which I still have, it’s always, like, artist/writer – there’s always a ‘slash,’ and artist is always first.”

However, J.E. Cooper wasn’t supportive of his daughter’s desire to pursue painting.

“There weren’t people going to college on my mother’s side of the family, and on my dad’s side of the family, if people went to college, it was for ‘practical’ professions,” she says. “He told me he wasn’t going to pay for my college if I went into art. So, I got a job, and my mother gave me money under the table. … The tuition got paid mostly by mother, and I paid for everything else.”

Cooper graduated with a painting degree in 1984 from the University of North Alabama, in Florence, but along the way, her father wasn’t the only one who questioned or was confused by her career choice.

“Some of the people who taught me – my painting professor, in particular, who was a brilliant painter and a sweet, beautiful man – he told me that he assumed I was going to get married and have a bunch of kids, and that was why I was getting an art degree,” she says. “So, nobody was mentoring me at that point, in my early 20s, and nobody was giving me a leg up.”

Cooper says where she grew up, many felt painting was something one did on Sundays, outside of holding down a “real job.”

“That was everybody else’s perception. I had no perception,” she admits. “In fact, my only model for what an artist’s life looked life were my professors, and I’m certain that’s one of the reasons I ended up teaching – because I didn’t know how else you went about it.”

Dual devotion

Cooper earned a master’s degree in art history in 1989 from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting in 1998 from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

“I started teaching when I was working on my master’s in art history,” she says. “It was a lot of fun. Folks who are in school, and they’re in an art class, or an art history class, usually, they’re interested in something. I love people who are interested in things.”

In 2001, she came to Northeast Ohio and began teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where she’s currently chair of the painting department.

Christopher Whittey, senior vice president of faculty affairs and chief academic officer at CIA, speaks highly of her teaching.

“She has a rare combination of being a very nurturing and caring individual, yet she can be pretty tough and demanding with the students,” he says. “When I’ve seen her in critiques with students, she really holds them accountable.”

“They think you’re the devil right up until they graduate, especially during their last semester,” Cooper says, smiling – and acknowledging the dynamic.

“They don’t all think that, but a lot of them think, ‘Oh, you’re just torturing me,’” she says. “And then they graduate, and it’s like a light flicks on for at least some of them. Then they have this great feeling of accomplishment and they have this work to be proud of. And to see them stand up there and answer questions very seriously about their work, it’s amazing.”

What’s also distinctive about Cooper, Whittey adds, is the devotion she brings to her dual roles as artist and educator.

“This is the ninth school I’ve been at” as a student or as faculty, he says. “It’s relatively rare, in my experience, outside of CIA, that you see someone who’s so committed to both of those roles.”

Strong female leads

Cooper is also committed to featuring prominent females in her work. Chief among them is the late Mary Tyler Moore. Not only has Cooper depicted the iconic actress’ home for her “Dream Houses” series, she’s painted portraits of the star herself – and a People Magazine cover of Moore hangs in her studio.

“When I was growing up, Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Richards, I was a little kid, but I thought she was the shit,” Cooper says. “She was so cool and so smart and independent. I wanted to be like her.”

Someone Cooper is considering for her next “Dream Houses” entry is the fictional Peggy Fair, loyal secretary to TV sleuth Joe Mannix on “Mannix.” Played by Gail Fisher, Peggy was a trailblazing character: an African-American single mother – two rarities for late 1960’s TV – who often kept things together at the title character’s detective agency.

“I do have male figures in my paintings sometimes, but I think I’m really interested in making women present,” she says. “I really like the idea that women get a starring role.”

The strongest female lead of them all, however, is likely the artist herself.

Cooper isn’t one to dwell on her “tale of woe,” as she calls it, but the 54-year-old has endured many distressing losses. Cancer, or its aftereffects, has killed three immediate family members: her mother, father, and only sibling, Kathy.

When she was 33, Cooper was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

“I was very sick during my 30s,” she says. “I was in and out of the hospital a lot of that time. I went to grad school, I got my MFA, and I kept working and teaching, but I had a lot of surgeries during that time.”

Battling the disease set her back in some ways, she acknowledges. It not only slowed her career as she was transitioning from being a student to a young professional, it took a toll on her emotions and psyche.

“I feel like I lost that sense of immortality that younger people tend to have,” she says. “I think you usually don’t get to the mindset I was in during my early 30s until you’re in your 60s or 70s.”

Today, Cooper feels fit – younger than her age because, she jokes, “I felt so shitty when I was in my 30s!” – but her fight against cancer is ongoing. Every time she forgets she’s mortal, she says, something comes along to remind her otherwise – but those experiences also remind her to keep her eye on what she feels is important.

“I write and I paint and I teach, and I think I go about those things in the way that I do because I know life is short, and I know there’s very little to be gained by having it not satisfy me,” she says. “I want my work to carry something that I feel is true, that I feel is important. Otherwise, I don’t want to do it. If I’m just making paintings to decorate somebody’s wall, I’m not interested in that. It’s a waste of my time.”

Profound experiences

Palette is important to Cooper. She sometimes mines source images but she’s also often inspired by the Lake Erie sunset.

Palette is important to Cooper. She sometimes mines source images but she’s also often inspired by the Lake Erie sunset.

Earlier this year, Cooper – and much of Cleveland’s creative community – lost close friend and CIA colleague Dan Tranberg to heart disease.

Cooper admits she’s having a difficult time accepting Tranberg’s death, but as she applies bands of masking tape to “The Waltons” house in her studio, she fondly recounts the ways in which he helped improve her art, from suggesting she mine her source images for a painting’s palette to helping make the creative connection between her banding method and the breaking-up effect of digital images.

“Dan always gave himself,” she says. “He didn’t hold back, and he didn’t hesitate to give. … He wanted your work to be better, and he would give you stuff to help make your work better.”

Today, Cooper’s work is unmistakable and singular. Pieces from her “It’s a Wonderful Life” series, like “Valentino,” “Martini” and “Granville,” are visually stunning – and both challenge and invite viewers to see between her intricately placed lines.

CIA’s Whittey describes it as of its moment – significant at a time when people consume more images in a week than they saw in a lifetime during the Renaissance and earlier.

“Critically, the strategy she deploys fragments and disturbs the image through the horizontal banding across the surfaces of her paintings. This speaks to the shattering, fragmentation and ‘white noise’ of image production and consumption in the contemporary world,” Whittey says. “It seems to me, then, Cooper’s work ironically suggests that image recognition and comprehension become more challenging precisely as the images become more numerous, more ubiquitous, more everyday-ish. The overly familiar, one could say, becomes ‘defamiliarized.’”

Cooper wants her art to achieve an effect similar to that of revered Cleveland artist Julian Stanczak. She’s quick to clarify she’s not comparing her paintings to his, but her goal is to provide viewers of her art the same “profound experience” they get when viewing the late Stanczak’s work.

“When you stand in front of one of his paintings, and it’s one of his particularly amazing paintings, there’s a buzz that goes off in your head with the colors,” she says. “You want the color to click, you want the physical material sensibility of the work to be right there. Visually, I want my work to work on a lot of different levels, so, when you get up close to it, I want it to fall apart. I want you to have that Julian Stanczak experience.”

Cooper not only creates that buzz, she’s on her own frequency, producing thought-provoking art that engages and captivates. CV

Lead image: Lane Cooper says she’s always working on multiple works of art at any given time, as evidenced by the contents of her studio in Cleveland’s Waterloo Arts District.

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