A&D ANNUAL 2021

Sally Cooper

Sally Cooper is an artist working in mixed media, with a fondness for found materials and a particular focus on textiles. Perpetually fascinated by what makes each of us who we are, Sally’s practice is centred on the broad topics of identity, human connection and memory. Recent work explores cultural ideas of gender and women’s self-identity. Needlework, historically demeaned as merely ‘decorative’, ‘domestic craft’ or ‘women’s work’, is employed by Sally to critique the labels assigned by a patriarchal society. For Sally, the Coronavirus pandemic with its global message of ‘stay home’, provoked a poignant connection to the traditional female roles of ‘house-wife’ and ‘stay-at-home-mother’. At first glance, Sally’s textile works are colourful, kitsch and naïve, but upon close inspection, the viewer is drawn into a detailed but fragmented visual narrative and invited to make their own connections. Ultimately, Sally aims to engage viewers to question how their own subjective experience significantly intersects with the world around them.