Additional Images

Provenance:

Courtesy of the artist.

The Work & Artist Bio

Green Zone: Freeway, 2004 is from an extended series the artist produced from 2003 to 2007. The impulse for this body of work was television — news coverage of the conflict in Iraq. The painted pixelation at the image’s lower right makes reference to this technological source but the break-up or fracturing of images speaks, as well, to the artist’s concerns for crucial issues in the world around her. The pale gold to yellow background is a nicely ambivalent palette choice: dawn and day beginning or fire, disaster and a rain of dust. Koop’s images always offer a state of suspension or alternately hopefulness. The extended series “Green Zone,” is in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. Green Zone: Freeway is one of a very few remaining from the “Green Zone” series and released from the artist’s personal collection.

Wanda Koop (b. 1951, Vancouver, Canada) is one of Canada’s most accomplished painters, with a career spanning over five decades and including more than 60 solo exhibitions. She has exhibited across Canada and the U.S. as well as in Asia, Europe, and South America. In 2019, The Dallas Museum of Art presented “Concentrations 62: Dreamline,” Koop's first major solo museum exhibition in the United States. The National Gallery of Canada mounted a major survey of her work in 2011. Koop has been the recipient of numerous awards, honorary doctorates, and Canadian medals of honour, including the Order of Canada in 2006. Her life and work have been the subject of several documentary films. In 1998 she founded Art City, a storefront art centre that brings together contemporary visual artists and inner-city youth to explore the creative process.

In October 2023, the artist opened “Eclipse” at No. 9 Cork Street, her first solo presentation in London, England. Her solo exhibition, “Objects of Interest,” opens at Night Gallery, Los Angeles, in January 2024. Wanda’s subsequent solo exhibition, “WHO OWNS THE MOON,” will appear at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal in April 2024. The artist lives and works in Winnipeg, Canada. Wanda Koop is represented by Blouin Division, Montréal and Toronto, and Night Gallery, Los Angeles.

The Beautiful Lament: An Interview with Wanda Koop, Border Crossings Issue 151, 2019

Fine Lines, Border Crossings Issue 135, 2016

The Beauty of Longing: A Conversation with Wanda Koop, Border Crossings Issue 60, 1996

Artist's Website

Night Gallery

Blouin Division