(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1996) Cooperman, Lisa Rachel
This show is about my recurring emotional experiences like joy, dread and frustrations, which elicit responses in the body. Using anatomy as the organizing structure, I link the body’s physical responses to mechanical activities like hammering, cutting and scooping. The sculptural elements represent the physical response to emotional experiences; the paintings help locate that response. Shapes of organs, bones and internal systems intersect with the physical world of iron, silver and beeswax to create a composite anatomy. Because emotion doesn’t have a specific location in the body the way digestion or respiration does, I assign it location using x-rays and anatomical illustrations as reference materials. I select anatomic shapes based on their formal suitability to represent emotional experience. In particular I am drawn to container and joint forms: the container form expresses the body’s metaphoric ability to hold, collect, and store emotions; the joint form represents its ability to connect with and repeat emotion. The joint and container forms, linked with shapes that evoke utensils, tools, and musical instruments, become the formal vocabulary for representing emotional experience.
