Colleen Asper, “Feature: Diana Cooper,” Beautiful/Decay, Issue W, 2008

Diana Cooper’s work looks like a lot of things—maps, flowcharts, circuit boards, diagrams, architectural renderings, and machine schematics are all commonly invoked comparisons. You could also add to that list fetish gear, mold, a candy store, and a view of the street through the windows of a car in the rain and still be within poetic license. The first list, though, has as a common denominator a series of systems for understanding something larger. If doodling reveals the mind’s rhythms that are a part of every thought, but not particular to any, abstraction can let us think about specific colors and forms in a way that piggybacks on their known uses, but is not tethered to them.

...This habit of rendering any single attempt at categorization inadequate is a fundamental aspect of Cooper’s enterprise. The work takes on chaos with a feather duster and white gloves. It could be monumental, if it weren’t so fussy. As blatantly handmade as it is reminiscent of things techie, this is art that is based in science and craft, reason and intuition. That Cooper demonstrates how inseparable polarities are is one value you can assign that the work doesn’t slither away from.

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