Eileen Cooper: Till The Morning Comes

Eileen Cooper the Fine Art Society

Eileen Cooper’s first solo exhibition at The Fine Art Society. The show features new paintings and a series of life study drawings inspired by the English National Ballet’s recent production of Gisellechoreographed by Akram Khan.

Throughout her career, Eileen Cooper’s bold and dynamic paintings have presented a dream-like vision of the world. Her stylised images of women, animals, and couples are full of energy and movement and often show her subjects dancing, floating, or flying in incongruous backgrounds. She has an abiding interest in the eternal feminine, in ideas of love, sexuality, and human relationships.

When the idea arose for Cooper to collaborate with the English National Ballet to create a series of works based on Akram Khan’s Giselle, it seemed a natural fit with her own artistic vision. In 2016, Khan was commissioned to choreograph a new version of this well-known classical ballet for the 21st century. Giselle is a much-loved repertoire piece for all major ballet companies. The story is a tragic one, about love and betrayal, revenge and forgiveness and features a strong and ferocious female protagonist.

Khan’s innovative choreography, which combines Indian kathak and contemporary dance styles with more traditional ballet vocabulary, produces dramatic, contorted, yet strangely beautiful shapes. Cooper studied these forms and movements over the course of several months, both while attending rehearsals for Giselle, and in her studio with dancer Madison Keesler of the English National Ballet acting as her model. The resulting paintings capture the power and energy of Khan’s choreography while remaining firmly situated within Cooper’s visual language. She has retained her signature black outlines and stylised figures but has incorporated even more movement and a sombre colour palette that hints at Tom Yip’s costume and set designs. The effect is completely unique; the series evokes the mood of the ballet, yet stands on its own as a dynamic addition to her recent body of work.

Duration 30 October 2017 - 21 November 2017
Times Mon to Fri 10 - 6pm
Cost Free
Venue The Fine Art Society
Address 148 New Bond Street, London, W1S 2JT
Contact 020 7629 5116 / art@faslondon.com / www.faslondon.com

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