Hollis Cooper Working Space

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.