^{“Blackberry Pickers Sharing,” 2022, Ashley Norwood Cooper. Oil on panel. On view through May 14 at Fenimore Art Museum. (Photo courtesy of Fenimore Art Museum)}

Artist Examines Edge of Nature

‘Swarm’ is Intense, Colorful

By WRILEY NELSON
COOPERSTOWN

Internationally famed artist and Cooperstown resident Ashley Norwood Cooper visited the Fenimore Art Museum on April 26 to walk visitors through her exhibition, “Swarm.” The visit was part of the museum’s “Food for Thought” series of events, each of which features lunch and a lecture or tour by artists and museum employees. “Swarm” is a product of the pandemic, a culmination of Cooper’s interest in swarming shapes like bees, butterflies and even ghost rabbits. She is known for her eye-popping colors and strong, exuberant brushstrokes depicting quiet, often tongue-in-cheek domestic scenes.

Cooper finds the physical characteristics of her chosen medium compelling; the home page of her website, https://www.ashleynorwoodcooper.com/, reads, “Nothing will ever replace painting because nothing makes a mess like paint. It oozes and stains, drips and streaks, fades, chips and permeates…I paint because I am drawn to messiness.” At the event, Cooper repeatedly discussed the chemical attributes, advantages and drawbacks of several varieties of paint. She is especially grateful for the local presence of Golden Artist Colors, a New Berlin-based employee-owned manufacturer on the cutting edge of artists’ paint and materials innovation.

Her deep fascination with paint is evident throughout the exhibit. Many of the displayed pieces are thick enough to seem three-dimensional. The centerpiece, “Throne of the Dead Queen,” is a sculpture installation featuring dozens of canvas bees made with dripping globs of paint.

“The bees are flying and falling at the same time,” Cooper said.

The piece is an oblique comment on colony collapse disorder and its implications for people; it features a poem by A. E. Stallings that updates part of Virgil’s “Georgics” to examine the terrifying collapse of a society. In her tour and online materials, Cooper spoke about her work as an attempt to come to terms with living and raising a family in a world that seems to be drifting off the rails. The sense of unease is palpable in many of her paintings. Despite their bucolic, domestic subject matter, her works often include a threatening or off-putting presence, like a venomous snake or the distractions of modern technology.

“A lot of my work since the pandemic started has looked at that edge of nature,” Cooper continued. The frontier between predictable, or at least comprehensible, human life and the wild world beyond is far closer to home than most people realize, she said. “Swarm” examines that edge through the lens of individuals and families trying to take their predictable lives a few steps beyond the frontier into nature. Cooper repeatedly mentioned the Indian Mound park in Cooperstown as an inspiration for these not-quite-tamed landscapes just outside human homes.

Beyond that message, “Swarm” is a beautiful and moving exhibition. Each piece is intricate and worth spending some time examining in detail. The larger paintings especially give the impression that no matter how long you look, you won’t see everything Cooper has hidden. It is definitely something that people need to see for themselves.

“Swarm” is open on the lower floor of the Fenimore Art Museum until May 14. More information may be found at https://www.fenimoreartmuseum.org/future-exhibitions/swarm.