“When pairing these two artists, it seemed like a natural fit – they both are exuberant in their use of color and texture. Their energy and processes are unapologetic – awkward and fresh. This exhibition brought together the sculptural works of mixed media ceramicist Ling Chun and figurative painter Ashley Norwood Cooper for the first time in a dizzying welter of color and texture.”

– Laura Zeck, founder + curator

Ashley Norwood Cooper, an Art Professor at SUNY Oneonta pulls deeply from her autobiography in her paintings of domestic life in small-town upstate New York. As she translates scenes of serving macaroni and cheese, scrolling obsessively through the news in bed, or sharing a too-small bathroom with her spouse, she warps their perspective and color values into something both larger and stranger than life. Bodies and expressions dominate Cooper’s compositions, their presence and energy almost straining against the limits of the canvas. Hands are rendered large, dwarfing bodies in their outsized importance: they are constantly doing, holding, playing, painting, mixing, serving, grasping, placing and pointing. As Cooper renders her family in everyday vignettes, the seemingly small details of well-loved household objects—a pair of swim goggles, a hair dryer, a phone—are given the weight and prominence of mythical talismans, imbued with meaning and close at hand.