Cope has managed and curated many artist-run projects and events, including tinygold and the BARI Festival Cope is also a member of the Brisbane-based contemporary Indigenous art collective ProppaNOW. Cope creates video, installation, sculptures, and paintings which challenge notions of Aboriginality, and her work examines the Australian narrative and our sense of time and ownership in a settler colonial state. A main focus of Cope's artwork is to shed light on colonialism and the myths and facts that come along with it. Her work has been exhibited in the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the Melbourne Museum, as well as many other public and private collections throughout Australia. In 2016–2017, Cope's work was exhibited along with that of Vincent Namatjira in the Tarnanthi Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia. In 2017, the Australian War Memorial commissioned Cope as official war artist, to travel to the Middle East to accompany various Australian Defence Force, in order to record and interpret topics relating to Australia’s contribution to the international effort in the region. A series of works entitled "Flight or fight" was mounted on North Stradbroke Islandblue gum. In the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, titled "Monster Theatres", Cope created an installation made of rocks, rusted steel drums, wire and huge drill bits that functions as an instrument designed to be played by musicians using modified bows and which mimics the sound of the bush stone-curlew, a native bird which is still and thriving on Minjerribah, but endangered in New South Wales and Victoria. Cope lives and works in Melbourne.
Projects
Video
The Blaktism looks at culture and identity as well as racism.
Nimbulima Ngolongmai
Boykambil
Yugambeh
Exhibitions
2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Monster Theatres, Art Gallery of South Australia and Adelaide Botanic Garden
The Tide is High is a project that represents the loss of geography in Australia due to colonialism. It was created in 2013 and hgihglights ideas of colonialism such as erasure of indigenous culture, jobs, and land.
Fluid Terrain is an installation exhibited at the Queensland Art Gallery, which connects the Quandamooka people with historical maps. This is Cope's largest project she has done thus far.
Paintings
Cope's paintings use synthetic paint as well as Indian Ink.
Mining Boom
Mining Boom Part Two
Yalukit William
Boon Wurrung
Awards
Western Australian Indigenous Art Award, 2015, worth, for The Blaktism
Collections
The Gallery of Modern Art purchased Re Formation 2016-2019 in 2019, and included it in the Water exhibition.
