Nicole Cooper

Biography

Nicole Cooper (American, 1983) lives and works as an artist in New York, NY. Cooper holds a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute (Kansas City, MO) and has completed the Yale Norfolk School of Art Summer Residency with Yale University (Norfolk, CT). In 2023 her work and interview was featured in USA Today article "All talk and, yes, action. Could conversations about climate change be a solution?" Cooper is a trained Climate Cafe facilitator and curates with the Climate Imaginarium on Governors Island, NY. She is a dedicated member of the New York Artists Circle. Her work resides in private collections across the US and in Italy. Cooper's most recent solo exhibitions include "Living Resonance: Paintings by Nicole Cooper" at Angad Arts Hotel (St. Louis, MO), "Pivotal: Recent Paintings by Nicole Cooper" at Fontbonne University Fine Art Gallery (St. Louis, MO), and "Nicole Cooper: Interwoven" at the Schmidt Art Center (Belleville, IL). She has exhibited in several group exhibitions in notable New York venues like Hudson Guild Gallery and Field Projects and was included in the 2025 Creative Climate Awards. Cooper has also shown in St. Louis, MO galleries like Duane Reed Gallery, COCA Millstone Gallery, Art St. Louis, and the Foundry Art Center and has participated in the Open Studios STL organized by the Contemporary Art Museum.

Artist statement

My aim is to provide an artistic space for the viewer to process the complex emotions brought on by our climate crisis, to create a pathway toward connection, understanding, and action.

My life-sized figurative oil paintings use energetic brushwork, vivid colors, and the human form to explore humanity as a living, evolving force. I visually break down the body to reveal the spark of life—from the interweaving of body systems that sustain a single person’s life to the connections between individuals across generations. We are biologically woven into our time and place in the contemporary world. Similarly, the action or inaction we take today ripple forward affecting the future.

What started as exploratory paintings rooted in evolutionary biology have quickly evolved to express my growing concern for an uncertain future on this planet. As we are stricken with a climate emergency that challenges the human species, I am in pursuit of a creative vision for the inner change necessary to adapt. My vivid paintings reflect real feelings—worry, fear, but also connection, intuition, strength—that become vivid manifestations of the life force inside the flesh and blood body.