Uploaded March 2016 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
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Wanda Koop is a 2016 winner of the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts.
Directed by Mike Maryniuk
Co-production of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Winnipeg Film Group
Presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm's-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."
For more information, visit: ggavma.canadacouncil.ca
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Transcript:
For me I start often with a very tiny sketch. Post-it Notes, that kind of thing.
And if I take these drawings, notes and observations and I use the thing that I have, I often think about the power of the arts in the world and that it’s a bigger army than any army that is out there. In a way this is something that I can do, that can perhaps change the world to make it a little better. Even if it’s better just for the moment, then I’ve done something.
I always call it the democracy of painting. I’m working really hard, I’ve spent a lifetime collecting, observing, I’m pulling it all together.
It’s not about me in the end, it’s really about the viewer. And interestingly enough, I become the viewer also. Once I’ve finished a painting or body of work, I become the viewer. So I am in a way painting it for me also, but I’m painting it in a way that it becomes this powerful vehicle that is outside of me.
I think for me my studio is, in a way, like my brain. I have all the drawings and the notes, the drawers… I have photo collections and on my tables are objects and books and residue of experience that I bring in from the outside world, newspaper clippings. It’s a complete resource for me. Not to mention my past work that I’m also drawing on.
I think the work is an ongoing narrative and every single painting, every single note, every single drawing, every film, everything compels me to continue and to see things differently.
Not a day goes by that I think that I’m finished. I have so much work to do.
Please subscribe to support the arts in Canada.
Wanda Koop is a 2016 winner of the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts.
Directed by Mike Maryniuk
Co-production of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Winnipeg Film Group
Presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm's-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."
For more information, visit: ggavma.canadacouncil.ca
*********************
Transcript:
For me I start often with a very tiny sketch. Post-it Notes, that kind of thing.
And if I take these drawings, notes and observations and I use the thing that I have, I often think about the power of the arts in the world and that it’s a bigger army than any army that is out there. In a way this is something that I can do, that can perhaps change the world to make it a little better. Even if it’s better just for the moment, then I’ve done something.
I always call it the democracy of painting. I’m working really hard, I’ve spent a lifetime collecting, observing, I’m pulling it all together.
It’s not about me in the end, it’s really about the viewer. And interestingly enough, I become the viewer also. Once I’ve finished a painting or body of work, I become the viewer. So I am in a way painting it for me also, but I’m painting it in a way that it becomes this powerful vehicle that is outside of me.
I think for me my studio is, in a way, like my brain. I have all the drawings and the notes, the drawers… I have photo collections and on my tables are objects and books and residue of experience that I bring in from the outside world, newspaper clippings. It’s a complete resource for me. Not to mention my past work that I’m also drawing on.
I think the work is an ongoing narrative and every single painting, every single note, every single drawing, every film, everything compels me to continue and to see things differently.
Not a day goes by that I think that I’m finished. I have so much work to do.
