I received an invitation by Yukiko Onley for an opening at her VisualSpace Gallery that is a retrospective of artist Elsbeth Coop. The invitation instantly took me back to the Diane Farris Gallery sometime around 2001.
Many local photographers (including this one) were
interested in an opening there that featured American celebrity photographer
Greg Gorman. In particular we wanted to see a large nude photograph of Danish
actress Brigitte Nielsen.
Diane Farris had prepared a surprise. She did not give
Gorman a one-man-show. Gorman had to share space with a Victoria artist
(unknown to me) who painted realistic female nudes placed in close quarters
like corners, boxes, etc. I was so drawn to these paintings that I rapidly lost
interest in Gorman’s works.
I was told that Coop also worked with the Victoria Police
Department helping them with murder investigations through her ability to
correctly show human anatomy.
And then Coop disappeared from the art scene. Every once in
a while I would become curious and I would search the internet. But my searches
took me nowhere.
In Vancouver I am an admirer of the output of Neil Wedman, Tiko Kerr, Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun , and Angela Grossman. They are not part (in
my view) of that difficult-to-understand Vancouver conceptual art scene. Not
that I don’t understand Rodney Graham’s humour. I do!
