Pullulate

“Long before the series The Last of Us premiered on HBO, Jess Riva Cooper’s work was already pullulating with parasitic plants blooming from orifices and body parts. Her use of lush flora decoration and juicy glazes is compelling, but on closer examination – repelling, revealing an uncanny darker narrative that sends shivers up your spine.   

Cooper was raised on a (un)healthy dose of gruesome Grimm’s fairy tales and romps through the woods on the family farm, allowing her imagination to run wild. She developed a love for the strange and mysterious alongside a love for growing things. She came to understand that Mother Nature is a beautiful fecund goddess but not a benign one; that divinity possesses a volatile and downright creepy side.   

Cooper’s platters are mashups of ceramic tropes (florals and figurines) and styles ranging from pre-Renaissance to Victorian. She’s cultivating her own genteel, little-shop-of-horrors. Do not be fooled – her use of “pretty” flowers is deceptive; they’re actually avatars for the not-so-beautiful, cordyceps (caterpillar fungus), more commonly known as the zombie parasite.  

Cooper’s work is a commentary on humans’ relationships with nature, much of it oppositional. We champion (and rightly so) the preservation of green and wild spaces but are repulsed by some of the terrifying things that live there, like Goliath Birdeaters (spiders) or even the humble leech. We desire the verdant field overflowing with abundance, yet are accountable for vast hectares of invasive growth, (deviously attractive), like crown vetch or purple loosestrife that rapidly disrupts chokes and destroys native species.  

As humans continue to put pressure on the planet, Cooper finds it chilling and somewhat satisfying to speculate what nature’s revenge will look like when it’s unleashed upon the blatant perpetrators, responsible for the climate crisis and environmental degradation.”  – Melanie Egan, Director of Craft & Design, Harbourfront Centre

“I create artwork reflecting on invasive species; the parasitic, multiplying growth that sits just outside of civilization, waiting to reclaim us. I work in an invasive, even parasitic way – using fired pieces, scavenged and broken remnants of my older sculptures. These intrusive pieces pierce the soft clay skin of my figures, and installations, building upon the fired surfaces. The finished result captures a static moment of tension, struggle, and the reclamation process that often intersects humans, objects, and nature. Ceramic busts, plaques, and sculptures that were once pure and pristine become hardly recognizable. They are overgrown with plant life. Their heads grow leaves instead of hair, and their skin is punctured with fruiting vines. Faces scream out in pain – or perhaps pleasure – in the midst of transformation. Nature, often representing life, instead becomes a parable for an alternative state – one where life and death intersect.”

Jess Riva Cooper is an artist and educator based in Toronto, integrating colour, drawing, clay and numerous other materials to create sculptures and installation-based artworks. In many of Cooper’s sculptures, the world sprouts plant matter. Colour and form burst forth from quiet gardens, bringing chaos to ordered spaces. Nature undergoes a reclamation process by creeping over structures, subverting past states and creating an unnatural transformation. Cooper received her MFA in Ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design. She widely exhibits her work and has participated in artist residencies such as Medalta, The Archie Bray Foundation, and The Kohler Arts/Industry Program.

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