Alika Cooper, at Good Weather

Los Angeles artist Alika Cooper is showing hand-dyed fabric paintings in a show called “Wet Suits” starting Saturday, Nov. 26, at Good Weather gallery, which is hosting a reception from 5-8 p.m. that day. Cooper received her bachelor of fine arts and master of fine arts degrees from California College of the Arts and has exhibited in California and New York. A statement from the press release describes the work:

Silhouetted figures submersed in the brilliant gradients of dusk and sunset conceal such distresses and desires entangled in the lover’s plunge. Performed out of a knotted agony, a sense of abandonment exacerbated by the recent maelstrom, Alika Cooper’s work looks to both disappear and rise at the same time. Using gendered techniques of quilting and appliqué, Wet Suits reclaims the female form, its portrayal, and a woman’s formation of her own body image. In these paintings, the hand-dyed fabric constructs the contours of the bathing-suited female, cropping them in a manner that its anonymity evinces absence. In a sense, hung out to dry, for either it elicits contemplation of some substantial subjects—objectification; the dehumanizing mechanics of a pervasive misogynistic culture; male privilege—or the nuances and subtleties in its tacit critiques are unrecognizable, lost in the forlorn swirl.

I’m not sure I get all that, but I like the color blocking and palette I see in the images provided with the press release and on her website. The Good Weather garage gallery is at 4400 Edgemere in North Little Rock, two blocks north of the Old Mill. To see the exhibit after the opening, email desk@goodweathergallery.com.

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