For almost three decades, Winnipeg painter Wanda Koop has created an overwhelming body of work examining how modes of technology impact nature. The Winnipeg Art Gallery, in collaboration with the National Gallery of Canada, is presenting an exhibition of her work that draws together a selection of large-scale signature paintings from the 1980s to the present. Wanda Koop…On the Edge of Experience opens at the WAG on Saturday, September 11. It will have a public celebration on Saturday, September 25 as part of Nuit Blanche (see attached release). The exhibition runs until November 21.
The exhibition’s high point is the premiere of Koop’s Hybrid Human, an installation incorporating her paintings, video projections, and the contemporary dance of noted choreographer Jolene Bailie, set against a sound piece by Susan Chafe and lighting design by Hugh Conacher.
“The relationship between the WAG and Wanda Koop exemplifies the fruitful collaboration and dialogue between institution and artist,” says WAG Director Stephen Borys. “Over the years the WAG has acquired forty-one of her works and has mounted three previous exhibitions. Our most recent Koop acquisition, an impressive painting from her Hybrid Human series, was made possible through the generosity of the Bank of Montreal.”
“There is a definite synchronicity here,” states Mary Reid, Curator of Contemporary Art and Photography. “Wanda Koop started out as a child taking Saturday morning art classes here at the WAG, and now we are organizing one of the most comprehensive overviews of her impressive artistic career to date.”
Whether social or ecological, nature is a broad concept that has been constructed, manipulated, destroyed, mutated, copied, and revered since humans began to use simple tools. Koop is deeply entrenched in these approaches, building an archive through note-taking, sketching, researching, photographing, and filming. Visitors will be able to explore key elements of Koop’s inspiration through a recreation of her studio environment that outlines her creative process and includes a number of her single channel video works.
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