 |
| Photo: Harold David |
Dr Lisa Cooper is a Sydney-based artist who works in
video, paint, sculpture and flowers, whose works have included custom-sized
crowns for the Sydney Theatre Company, video projects on Cockatoo Island and a
jewellery range called ‘The Butcher’s Daughter’. She holds a Doctorate of
Philosophy in Fine Art from the College of Fine Arts at UNSW. Dr Cooper spoke
to arts interview about
diversity in her work and the challenges faced by artists working in different
mediums.
Interview by
Elinor King
Can you tell us about
yourself and your experience?
I am equally motivated by the conceptual and
philosophical concerns of art and the material and perceptible aspects of art
making. In my practice I work with video, paint, sculpture and flowers. My most
recent ancestors have worked in trade; a boner, a butcher, a milkman, a
seamstress… I have worked with a charcutier [a type of butcher that generally specialises in pork], bakers
and florists. I consider my work in sculpture and by extension my work with
flowers to be a powerful link to my father’s work as a butcher and to my
great-great grandfather’s work (he was once the quickest boner in NSW – the
most adept at ‘sculpting’ a carcass). Through much undulation and application
the strands of my quotidian life (floristry) and my work as an artist have
seemed to converge in my third decade of life and my instinct is that this is
right.
You have worked in a
diverse range of mediums in your art practice. What draws you to working in a
particular media, for example gold?
The mediums that I work in are mostly intuited as
well as being dictated by the statement or intention of the work. As in
painting where one chooses a colour to make a mark, I am both seduced by the
material itself and compelled by the intention of the work. Bodies of work in
repetitious medium such as my work in gold do however border on obsession.
Obsession and repetition are the same for me as concentration, which in the
context of art has the quality of a prayer.
Obviously I am drawn to materials for their inherent
symbology and associations, for example the grand poetic metaphor of flowers
and the myriad significance of individual blooms.
What are the challenges
that you face when working with different types of mediums?
Though the mediums may seem disparate and are of
course materially distinct, they kind of harmonise the logic of a body of work
as well as my practice as a whole. There is a strong thread of concerns and
intentions that links the interdisciplinary output of my practice.
You currently work a lot
with flowers. How did this come about, and what are you currently working on?
I have always found the scope of flowers to be extraordinary
as they may be ‘divinely’ beautiful and so evidence some kind of unearthly or
sublime inception, and yet they are thoroughly of the earth. At the pivotal
moments of life we give flowers as a gift, I think a comfort, for their elegant
description of the phenomenon of life and the certainty of death – a powerful
Memento Mori.I am currently working on ‘Memento Mori tattoos’ in paint and
video. I am also running a flower business called DOCTOR COOPER, for bunches of
flowers, installations, and flowers in all and every context.
Do you think that it is
important for an artist to be diverse in the ways in which they express
themselves?
I think it’s important for an artist to be whoever
they are. What make you distinct are your instincts and proclivities.
Do you believe that being
flexible can hinder your artistic practice?
I think that both flexibility and inflexibility well
placed are fundamental to artistic practice. In the very act of making art
there is a type of elasticity that occurs whereby one is kind of drawn away and
then pulled back to the original and central concern of the work. From the
nexus of a project, through research and experimentation comes a labyrinth of
new concerns and points of departure. In order to sufficiently develop an idea
from inception to completion (or as close as one can get to it) the quality of
flexibility or fluidity is essential. Within my own practice an inflexible kind
of obsessive theme such as abstract and material ‘gold’ will lead me toward
seemingly unlinked production.
Dr Lisa Cooper Installation
An interview by Elinor King
Doctor Lisa Cooper website www.doctorcooper.com.au
Originally published August 6, 2012 on arts interview
artsinterview directed and edited by Eliza Muldoon
artsinterview directed and edited by Eliza Muldoon
© 2012 arts interview
NAU NUA | ART MAGAZINE edition
Edition by Juan Carlos Romero
Interview courtesy of Eliza Muldoon, director of arts interview
Photo by Harold David courtesy of artsinterview
All rights reserved
All rights reserved