Laura Cooper

Emeritus Chair

Laura Cooper has an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, and a BA from the University of California, San Diego.  Cooper has been exhibiting since 1986. Trained as a painter, as her interest in plants and environments grew, her work expanded to include installation and sculpture.

Cooper taught at Art Center for thirty-four years. Her career as an educator focused on curricular invention; developing and teaching interdisciplinary classes like “Second Nature,” “Gardens Meaning and History,” and “Dandelions and Mushrooms,” all of which encouraged a respectful relationship to the environment.

Cooper's administrative work included Chairing the Undergraduate Art Department, co-Directing the Chairs Council, and co-leading the college's Re-Opening Task Force.  Cooper held elected positions as Chair of the Faculty Council, and Director of Histories in the Humanities and Sciences Department.

Cooper’s artwork continues to focus on the natural world. With her wild urban garden in Northeast Los Angeles as the center of her practice, she also explores the greater Western landscape, from the high Sierra to the Washington coast. Her work is increasingly abstract, uncovering recurring dendritic forms in roots and trees, in mycelial networks and neural branching of the brain, and outward to the cosmic webs of the universe.