Eileen Cooper RA: Learning To Fly

An oversized woman floats in the sky as if dropped from a plane or whipped up in a hurricane, her limbs caught up in currents of air. Below her are rolling mountains, a river, skeletal trees with new leaves on their branches – a sign of spring, fresh beginnings, a period of becoming. This is Learning to Fly, the titular painting of Eileen Cooper’s solo exhibition at Kristin Hjellgjerde Gallery, Tower Bridge, which leads us through spaces – and states – of transition and creativity.

Cooper has spent the last five decades exploring different aspects of the female experience by weaving together autobiographical elements with references from mythology, fairy tales and art history. She sees the female character in her paintings as an archetypal figure through whom she channels different emotions, often reflecting on women’s work and creative expression. While the majority of her works depict outside environments, this new body of work also includes compositions set within the artist’s studio, though, as with all of Cooper’s settings, the studio is less representative of a physical space than of a state of mind.