Jess Riva Cooper’s enchanting ceramic figures seem to cry out silently. We see a moment of transformation frozen forever as growth and destruction intertwine across the surfaces of her ceramics. She aims to reveal the dark reality of nature’s power, and how human bodies are not separate from its botanical processes. It is no surprise she takes inspiration from parasitism and invasive plant species. In many of her works we see wild foliage, fungi, and vines growing out of the subject's orifices. The passage of time becomes intimately interwoven with how we see nature, as seen in her Viral Series, which was inspired by the death and regeneration occurring in deteriorating communities, places, and objects. Something overgrown is something forgotten, something left to become a part of nature: “Without intervention, nature takes over and breathes new life into objects, as it does in my sculptures.” And although she often depicts specific invasive plant species with acute detail and accuracy, nature in her sculptures seems to be represented not in a distinct representation of a plant, but in a transformative, collective force.

Cooper’s influences are diverse: she interweaves themes of science, literature, and spirituality. The pierce of fear we feel on seeing her intriguing scenes gets us interested, pulling us into a narrative. She is, much like many sci-fi authors, inspired by both the real, natural world that boasts terrifying plants such as the zombie fungal spores of the Amazon rainforest—and the fantastical, or the uncanny. She has mentioned books that inspired her such as Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, in which a spell causes ancient sculptures in the York Cathedral to talk. Her installations work much like an author’s stories: drawing you into a vision in which you accept the uncanny as part of the narrative. As sci-fi often deals with our fears of the apocalypse, so too do Cooper’s narratives. In her sculptures, the end of human life is in motion, and nature is overtaking us. This brings to mind both personal and political issues at play in our modern world. Through the sculptures we can imagine the force of these global issues—such as ecological destruction—enacted onto the personal landscape of the body, enabling us to see intimately the way that this damage to nature will only lead to our own suffering. Nowadays, apocalyptic sentiments are common: we may consider the claustrophobia of the coronavirus—the human world rendered helpless by a disease—or we might consider how close the climate crisis feels, and its impact on communities and individuals.

Cooper’s engagement with artistic sources extends to art historical references evoked by her materials. A few pieces in the exhibition are inspired by Luca della Robbia’s Renaissance terracotta sculptures. The pale blue and white earthenware was invented by della Robbia to depict scenes of sacred history and devotional images of Christ and the Madonna in a variety of settings—from church altars to gates and domestic spaces. Cooper perhaps dislocates the historical notion of using sculpture to worship the untouchable and immaterial by instead depicting it as being encroached on by the profane world of wild nature. Depicting the intangible and the spiritual through the physical medium of ceramics is in itself a paradox, and we are reminded that we cannot separate our art and beliefs from the earth in which we live. We are drawn in by the beauty of Cooper’s detailed botanicals only to find the contorted bodies that they emerge from disturbing and strange. This exposes our comfort in the perceived separation of our bodies from the symbiotic relationships of the natural world.

Not only does she reference venerated Catholic art, but also other forms of traditional Western art. She involves austere architecture in her installations, haughty Victorian busts, and lordly statues of gods and goddesses from ancient antiquity. These forms reference artworks that have been created to “show our sense of being apart from the natural world, our stubborn sense of difference from other animals and the universe in which we find ourselves.” John-Paul Stonard further claims “it is no longer simply a feeling of apartness, but also a sense that we own and control nature.” Cooper’s art confronts this pattern in Western art history, as she depicts a world where the wildness of nature—that we align with the dirty, the profane, and the taboo—cannot be separated from our bodies, or indeed our art. In her pieces, these traditional forms are attacked by wild, natural forces. Her busts, once pristine and pure, “become tattooed with nature” as their faces scream out in pain or perhaps pleasure. This depiction not only intertwines humans with nature but also transforms: “Color and form burst forth from quiet gardens and bring chaos to ordered spaces. Nature undergoes a reclamation process by creeping over structures, subverting past states, and creating a preternatural transformation.” The “past states” of art indeed need transforming—they need rewilding, as do the natural spaces we have groomed and controlled, and often turned into concrete jungles.

To bring chaos to order is a radical act, especially through a lens of “reclamation.” This notion makes the ingrained female perspective of her work particularly poignant. Cooper, who models her figures from her own hands and facial features and is a self-proclaimed “woman, feminist, mother,” is “100% thinking of spaces and places from a female perspective.” The way the plants bring chaos to once-ordered and idealized artistic forms could serve as a symbol of overthrowing the harshly ordered system of patriarchy. Furthermore, her female forms are encased in lush but threatening vegetation that may seem to protect the bodies they grow through and around. The body could be seen as a self-grower through which thorns and plants create a protective space. These metaphorical bodily weapons allow the viewer to imagine a transformed body, unlike the modern conception of the body that, according to Judith Butler, is exposed “to the gaze of the others but also to touch and violence.” This imagery of plants as a metaphor for female liberation is common in art and literature, such as in Sylvia Plath’s poem Mushrooms, which was Cooper’s touchstone to help with her creative process during this project. The poem tells of the insidious encroachment of mushrooms that “Take hold on the loam, / Acquire the air,” and “shall by morning / Inherit the earth. / Our foot’s in the door.” This poem also contains many themes that are interwoven into Cooper’s sculptures, such as death, transformation, and parasitism.

In Cooper’s work, nature is truly a transformative force and her art encourages viewers to recognize the ways in which our bodies and lives are tangled up in these metamorphic cycles of nature. Her figures are sublime sculptures that in their beauty and ugliness remind us of the power of the natural world—as well as the danger of believing we are above it. The blooming plants that invade and encase the body give rise to endless meanings, references, and emotions that immerse the viewer in Cooper’s unique visual narrative.

Laura Connell September 2024