Based in Winnipeg, Wanda Koop is one of Canada’s most important and inventive contemporary artists. With a career spanning over four decades, Koop is known for charting new directions in painting, and pushing the boundaries of presentation and display with her monumental painting installations incorporating video and performance. Recognized for her community work and social activism as well as her visual practice, Koop has been the subject of more than 50 major solo exhibitions in Canada and abroad. Most notably, the National Gallery of Canada and the Winnipeg Art Gallery exhibited a comprehensive survey of her work in 2010-2011. Over the course of her career, Koop has been the recipient of numerous national and international honours. Most recently, she was awarded a Governor General’s Award in the Visual and Media Arts for 2016. In 2006, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada, in recognition of her outstanding lifetime achievement. Koop has also been honoured with the Queen’s Diamond and Golden Jubilee Medals, and is the recipient of honorary doctorates from the University of Winnipeg, the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, and the University of Manitoba. The National Gallery of Canada holds a major collection of her work, which is also represented in private and museum collections including the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal; the Reykjavik Art Museum; the Shanghai Museum of Modern Art; the Caldic Collection, Wassenaar, Netherlands; as well as the Bank of Montreal and the Royal Bank of Canada.
