Cooper received her MFA in Ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design. She widely exhibits her work and has participated in artist residencies such as Medalta, The Archie Bray Foundation, and The Kohler Arts/Industry Program. In her sculptural Viral Series: Fruiting Bodies, Cooper explores death and regeneration in deteriorating communities. Places and things, once bustling and animated, have succumbed to nature’s intentions. Without intervention, nature takes over and breathes new life into objects and sculptures. Human busts, once pure and pristine, are hardly recognisable. They become tattooed with nature. Their heads grow leaves instead of hair. The faces scream out in pain—or perhaps pleasure—in the midst of transformation. Often used to represent life, nature instead becomes a parable for an alternative state where life and death intersect.
Jess Riva Cooper is an artist and educator based in Toronto, integrating colour, drawing, clay and numerous other materials to create sculptures and installation-based artworks. In many of Cooper’s sculptures, the world sprouts plant matter. Colour and form burst forth from quiet gardens, bringing chaos to ordered spaces. Nature undergoes a reclamation process by creeping over structures, subverting past states and creating a preternatural transformation.
Jess Riva Cooper was a finalist for the Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize in 2023.