Statement

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My interdisciplinary approach bridges gaps between the natural and non-natural through a practice of immersive world-building. I’m interested in perceiving the natural world like a bee on a flower, or as Aldous Huxley observed, “the nearer the more divine.” 

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By utilizing painting, ceramics, wood-working, found objects and installation, I seek to engage with the sublime. Highlighting microscopic beings such as insects, flora and fungi on reclaimed materials, I explore ephemerality while emphasizing an understanding for all sentient things. 

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Georgia O’Keeffe denies her work being reduced to relating to the body and eroticism. Alternatively, my work actively engages the human body through scale and can create new ways of seeing through spatial distortion. Researching and creating large scale interpretations of miniature creatures, like the Peacock Spider flaunting a psychedelic mating feather, can help us develop new ways of relating to the entanglement of the world. What can we gain by situating our lives in relation to another species? This perspective can redirect an objectifying gaze, rooted in disconnection and overconsumption, which often leads to unintended environmental consequences. 

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Bio

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Trevor Coopersmith is the founder of the Urban Art Scholarship Foundation and holds a Bachelors in Art from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Trevor has exhibited with bG Gallery in Santa Monica,  The Palos Verdes Art Center and The Wildling Museum in Solvang, CA. Trevor was the 2021 artist in residence in College Station, Texas and a Port Austin, MI summer artist in residence in 2022. Coopersmith is a current MFA candidate at Otis College of Art & Design. 

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