cute mutiny
her dress full of thunder
the sky catching at her hem
— Drenched Co.
Domestic life seldom feels like a subject while you are inside it. It passes through your hands and leaves its shape on the body long before you turn to look.
In one of Eileen Cooper’s paintings, a dress hangs from a tree apart from the body, holding its emptiness with surprising fullness, as though something carried for years has entered the cloth. Nearby, a woman climbs through the branches towards it, or perhaps away from it, and Cooper keeps her between these purposes, at the point where a familiar action begins to gather the charge of escape.
Sara Ahmed writes about orientation through what the body finds within reach, and Cooper’s women keep testing that reach, climbing and leaning beyond the composure expected of them while remaining tied to whatever bears their weight. The ladder has been placed and the tree holds; freedom has weight here and leans upon something.
Whimsy tips the repetitions of domestic life out of place, allowing the work of the day to loosen its hold for a moment. Cute mutiny carries the pleasure and the limit of the show, since these figures disobey gravity while their rebellion remains charming enough for the room, their strangeness almost house-trained. Across the exhibition, the lifted body begins to feel like a familiar answer, and some of the unease slips quietly into style.
I wanted the domestic life inside these paintings to push harder against its frame and found myself waiting for the thunder to leave the dress. It remained caught in the cloth, a low charge beneath the charm, while the sky held her hem gently enough for the climb to continue.
See https://kristinhjellegjerde.com/exhibitions/582/overview/
See also https://www.soaked.space/2026/09/exhibition-review-eileen-cooper-ra.html
Caption: Image above: Installation view, Eileen Cooper RA Learning to Fly, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London 2026
Image courtesy of the gallery, the artist and BJ Deakin Photograpy.
We take great care not to harm the image in any way. And these views, they are ours only and not those of the gallery or artist.
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