Athena Cooper

Athena Cooper is a self-taught acrylic painter whose work is her personal exploration of what it means to live an ordinary disabled life. Her landscape paintings, portraiture and still life blend realism with the fractured light and intense colour inspired by stained glass.

Born with the rare genetic disorder, Osteogenesis Imperfecta (aka ‘brittle bone disease’), and a wheelchair user since the age of six, Athena grew up navigating an ill-fitting narrative about being disabled in our society. Shifting away from either a highly medicalized narrative or an inspiration-oriented one, Athena’s paintings seek to highlight the ordinariness of a disabled life. Whether it’s challenging the asexual perception of people with disabilities through showing the interabled relationship with her husband or presenting her wheelchair with a neutral emotional charge more typical of a piece of furniture, these are all ways that she seeks to change the narrative from the exceptional nature of disability to a more normative, inclusive viewpoint.

She is the winner of the 2023 Won Lee Prize, administered by the National accessArts Centre, celebrating creative excellence among Canadian visual artists living with disabilities. Her 2024 solo exhibit, “The Extraordinary, Ordinary Nature of Interabled Love” has received generous support from the Canada Council for the Arts and Calgary Arts Development and will highlight the everyday moments of her life with her husband through a large series of paintings.

To follow her journey, consider subscribing to her newsletter or following her on Instagram at @athenacreative.