June 3 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Meet the Artist: Jess Riva Cooper
Wednesday May 13, 2026
5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Admission is free on Wednesdays from 4:00 pm – 9:00 pm. All ages welcome!
Drop by the Makerspace to meet Artist in Residence Jess Riva Cooper and learn more about her practice.
During her residency, Cooper will engage deeply with the Gardiner’s collection, testing clay bodies and developing a refined surface palette for a new body of sculptural work examining how ecological pressures, memory, and colonial plant histories imprint themselves on ceramic forms and the spaces they inhabit.
The Gardiner Museum Artist Residency is made possible through the generous support of Dr. Pamela Goodwin.
About the Artist
Jess Riva Cooper
Jess Riva Cooper is the Gardiner Museum’s 2026 Artist in Residence. Cooper’s artistic practice centers on clay as a material through which ecological narratives, mythologies, and human–non-human entanglements can be expressed. Working through hand-built ceramic sculpture, drawing, slips, and glazes, she creates hybrid forms in which botanical growth infiltrates, overtakes, or merges with architectural and bodily fragments. Cooper holds a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and an MFA in Ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her research-driven practice has been shaped by residencies at Medalta, the Archie Bray Foundation, Lillstreet Art Center, and the John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry Program, among others. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in public and private collections.
