Born in Hollywood and raised in California north to south, Sydney Cooper was profoundly influenced by the unique mix of culture and subcultures present in the hybrid hot house that was and is California. Cooper received her Bachelor of Arts from Bennington College and has lived, worked and studied in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, and Tokyo. Following this period of travel, Cooper settled first in Chimayo, New Mexico, then Santa Fe, and has found her permanent home in Jacona, New Mexico.

She has exhibited at venues including the Santa Monica Art Museum, Los Angeles; Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe; and Allied Cultural Prosthetics, New York, among others. Cooper has participated in biennials and art fairs engaged in site-specific exhibitions and performances in Joshua Tree, San Francisco and New York. As well as engaging in her own practice Cooper has curated and co-organized numerous site-specific public installations in New Mexico and California, including the Windows Project, Santa Fe; Bloc-Busta, Various Locations, NM; Wallworks, Plan B: Evolving Arts, Santa Fe; and NM10:DISPERSION, CINEMALAND, Los Angeles. Sydney's studio, the old Sena Station and Mercantile in Pojoaque, is now the center of her studio and public engagement projects.

As well as painting, sculpture, video, and performance works Cooper considers community engagement an integral part of her art practice. Sydney was on the board of the Chimayo Mutual Domestic Water Association; she has participated in running two acequia systems - the Ortega Ditch in Chimayo and the Acequia Larga in the Pojoaque Valley. Cooper was an active board member at the Santa Fe Art Institute from 2011 - 2020. She has restored 5 historic a adobes in Northern New Mexico, for which she has received a historic preservation award from The Historic Santa Fe Foundation. Sydney is proud she has raised two artists, Sachiko Cooper Da Silva and Lucio Isao Cooper Da Silva.

Sydney is currently a 2025 Community of Practice Fellow at the Santa Fe Art Institute.

Of her work she says “The surface in my paintings is where it all happens. Receptive, reflective, inviting or repellent. My work is a dance between the viewer, available light, the surface and the imagery it conceals or reveals, illuminating an experience of a moment in time.”

CV