In Conversation with Wanda Koop
Courtesy of the artist and Night Gallery, Los Angeles. Photography by Nik Massey.
Wanda Koop (b. 1951, Vancouver, Canada) is a renowned painter. She has exhibited across Canada and the U.S. as well as in Asia, Europe, and South America. In 2019, The Dallas Museum of Art presented "Concentrations 62: Dreamline," Koop's first major solo museum exhibition in the United States. The National Gallery of Canada mounted a major survey of her work in 2011. Koop has been the recipient of numerous awards, honorary doctorates, and Canadian medals of honor, including the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Order of Canada, in 2006. Her life and work have been the subject of several documentary films. In 1998 she founded Art City, a storefront art centre that brings together contemporary visual artists and inner-city youth to explore the creative process. Koop's work is included in numerous public collections, including Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, NY; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX; Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Montréal, Canada; The Shanghai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China; Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Canada, and many others.
I had the pleasure of asking Wanda about how she feels about AI, what was the most memorable response someone has had to her artwork, and so much more.
Wanda Koop, Moon Walk #7, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 48" x 48". Credit: William Eakin
UZOMAH: Tell us about the origins of this body of work.
WANDA: I began these paintings three years ago. They’re outgrowths of my long-standing interests; I’ve used moon imagery for many years. These new moon paintings are untethered to specific landscapes and launch viewers into these more open-ended environments. We’re getting images from NASA of Jupiter and Jupiter’s moon, of the great unknown, which can make humanity feel so small. My work parallels that angst, yet there’s something soothing about it as well. I’m translating this observation of our own smallness into paintings with a residue of hope.
Technology is another major interest. AI is developing, we’re constantly bombarded with information from our cell phones. My first telephone was a party line, so you could hear everyone. And now everyone’s hearing everyone in a different way. It’s a new kind of noise and bombardment. What do you do with all that? I’ve corralled these feelings into my paintings. It’s my work as a painter to identify the abstract feelings and turn them into something experiential.
Wanda Koop Moon Walk #10, 2024 Acrylic on canvas 48h x 48w in
U: Your new "AI Ghost Trees" series finds the letters "AI" in spare tree branches in a barren landscape. What interested you in this form?
K: I’ve been researching nanotechnology and painting robotic imagery for as long as I can remember. I’ve always thought that, with our increasing technological capabilities, we will humanoid ourselves. We will become robots, needing less and less until we create ourselves out of the world we live in. When I began painting robots many years ago, they were like tin cans with eyes in them. As technology progresses, robots are being created more and more in our image, and my paintings reflect that.
I started the “Ghost Tree AI” paintings two or three years ago. I have a property up north in Canada, about 160 acres on a lake, surrounded by deep forest. Right outside the studio window were a couple of trees that spelled “AI.” I thought: Isn’t that ironic, these decaying trees that are making these signs of advanced technology? It was funny to me.
Wanda Koop Reed - XO, 2024 Acrylic on canvas
U: How do you feel about AI?
K: Some of what AI can produce is incredibly good. Other aspects are terrifying. Where will we end up? What’s the final outcome? Then you see the trees, skeletons of this earth, dead and reflected in water. I’m thinking about this iconographic translation of what we’re observing and feeling right now.
U: You find the letters "AI" in the trees and "XO" in the reeds throughout different paintings. What’s the relationship between language and painting?
K: Painting is its own visual language. It’s a very real language, and it’s my first language. People are always looking for a didactic description for art. They want to be told how to “read” a painting. I prefer to build meaning into my paintings. I want people to come to my work on their own terms. You don’t need an art background to appreciate the paintings. When I insert text-like figures into my compositions, it’s cheeky. Maybe you’re seeing an “X” or an “O.” Maybe it’s just reeds in water.
Wanda Koop Createher Pink, 2024 Acrylic on canvas 48h x 36w in
U: You recently began to play the theremin. How has that influenced the work?
K: Many years ago, I made a body of work called “Unseen Seen.” I was thinking about head-to-hand energy, the frequency of mark-making. With the theremin, I’m playing radio waves. I can visualize the energy I need, and where my hands have to be placed in order to make specific sounds. It’s a lot like painting, but with radio waves. I can’t repeat any certain piece I’ve played, but I can repeat it within myself.
U: What is the most memorable response you've had to your work?
K: There have been many! I can’t isolate any single one. If I can make art at this time, that comes from a deep place, then communicate some feeling and humanity to a viewer, then I’ve succeeded. I’m very touched when people respond to the work and feel the need to be with it.
Wanda Koop Reed - Gold, 2024 Acrylic on canvas 60h x 48w in
Wanda‘s latest exhibition opened on September 5th and will close on November 1st of this year, entitled Magnetic Field, presented by Arsenal Contemporary NY, in collaboration with Night Gallery, Los Angeles. The magazine did a feature on the exhibition, which can be found here. For more information about Wanda’s artwork, please visit her website here and also, please follow her on Instagram.,
