BIO : Andrea Cooper
Andrea Cooper est une artiste médiatique qui détient une maîtrise en Études visuelles de l'Université de Toronto et un baccalauréat en Beaux-Arts de l'Université Concordia. Les vidéos Honey et Strange Things de Cooper ont été présentées en première au Forum Expanded de la Berlinale. En 2007, elle a remporté le Prix de la relève en vidéo de l'Office national du film du Canada au Toronto Images Festival. Parmi ses précédentes expositions collectives, citons Mimetism à Extra City à Anvers et Darkness Ascends au MOCCA. Les œuvres vidéo et les installations de Cooper ont été exposées dans des galeries à travers le Canada et à l'étranger.
Andrea Cooper is media artist with a Masters in Visual Studies from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Concordia. Cooper's videos Honey and Strange Things premiered at the Berlinale’s Forum Expanded. In 2007 she won the National Film Board of Canada's Emerging Video Artist Award at the Toronto Images Festival. Previous group exhibitions include Mimetism at Extra City in Antwerp and Darkness Ascends at the MOCCA. Cooper's video and installation work has been exhibited in galleries across Canada and internationally.
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Andrea Cooper was born into what she describes as ‘a noisy and confusing Catholic family,’ in St. John's, Newfoundland. Cooper absorbed the island’s distinct culture – rooted in geographic isolation, hardship and humour. But like any North American teenager, her brain was also soaked in American T.V. shows and teen magazines. These glamorous T.V. stars made her feel like a freak. She wanted to look like Farrah Fawcett and live in L.A.
Cooper has spent her artistic career trying to understand how popular culture has ‘scrambled,’ her identity. She became obsessed with creating her own female role models, ones that were giant and powerful enough to survive in Newfoundland. Cooper began by painting these larger-than-life women – who are all in her image -- and eventually progressed to video and Web-based work. But her characters – Jane, Sugar, Charlie and Texas -- are not self- portraits. For Cooper, they are external beings, and her manipulation of them is like ‘playing with dolls.’
Trained principally as a painter and a printmaker, Cooper incorporates photography, painting, animation and writing into her artwork. After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University in Montreal in 1998, she moved back to Newfoundland. Cooper has shown her work in New York City and in galleries across the country. In 1999, she had a solo exhibition of her paintings, entitled Home is Not Sad, at the I-land Gallery in Toronto.
Cooper also works in new technology. On probation was her first web-book project -- www.onprobation.nf.ca . In October 2000, Starring opened the 11th Annual St. John's International Women's Film and Video Festival:www.starring.nf.ca. In Starring Cooper uses advertising techniques – T.V. commercials, billboards and postcards -- to lure people to view her work. In 2002, Cooper had a solo exhibition of Starring: Part 2 at the Khyber Centre for the Arts in Halifax.
Cooper makes her home in St. John's.