lisa cooperman
I am a studio artist, museum educator, and curator who's goal is to make art matter to more people. My studio practice is rooted in material and craft and engagement in the gallery grounded in the belief that the entire scope of art, from humor to profundity is available to everyone.
The mostly wall-hung textile sculpture of my studio practice presents a sequence of narrative bursts that combine the influence of place, a love of materiality, and craftsmanship. I work with found and recycled material, selected for its formal appeal and the meanings associated with former use. The garment-scaled pieces suggest ways an individual might interact with stories that otherwise feel too big to swallow and relates them directly to the individual body as a site of need, tribulation, vanity, and pleasure.
In many ways this work is about the instability of constructed narratives and the traumas they often produce, but it also centralizes the pleasure present in the act of making. My aim is to land in the place between stuff and story, to find a sweet mystery spot and stitch it to pieces.
selected recent exhibitions
2018 Urban Hive, Sacramento: Manic Episode 6, invitational
Pence Gallery, Davis: Slice, juried group
happylucky no. 1, New York: Haptics, invitational
D'Art Center, Norfolk: Material, juried group
2017 A.I.R. Gallery, New York: Baize, solo sculpture exhibition
A.I.R. Gallery, New York: Wish You Were Here, postcard show
2016 Conrad Wilde Gallery, Tucson: Flesh Anew, juried group
On the Ground Floor, Los Angeles: The Feminist Sex Shoppe,
juried group
2015 Philadelphia Women's Caucus for Art: Old Enough to Know Better
juried group
selected recent curatorial projects
2018 University of the Pacific, Reynolds Gallery
Golden Eye: Art from the Robert & Jeannette Powell Collection
University of the Pacific, Reynolds Gallery
The Revolution Will Be DIY
2017 University of the Pacific, Sacramento campus
Larry Walker: Probe
University of the Pacific, Department of Art & Graphic Design
Pacific Prints: Selections from the permanent collection
2015-17 Haggin Museum: Provided conceptual, historic, and aesthetic framework for core collection reinstallation
2011-16 DeltaFusion: Conceptualized, researched, wrote, recruited, organized, designed, taught, and performed collaborative summer workshop and giant mask and puppet pageant with over 75 diverse community participants in Stockton, California.
2015 Haggin Museum: Co-curated exhibition Picasso, Miró & Hawaii
Five-0: Prints from the Jack Lord Collection
2014 Haggin Museum: Co-curated exhibition Fortunes & Family
experience
2017 - Present University Curator
University of the Pacific, Stockton, California
2006 - 2017 Curator of Education
The Haggin Museum, Stockton, California
2006 Museum Educator
The Haggin Museum, Stockton, California
2010 - 2016 Visiting Assistant Professor
2000 - 2009 Visiting Lecturer
Department of Visual Art
University of the Pacific, Stockton, California
education
MFA, Sculpture & Metalsmithing, Montana State University
BA, magna cum laude, English Literature, Bowdoin College