Esme Cope is a Vancouver Island-based photographer. She is inspired by the rich environment around where she lives. Currently completing her BFA in visual arts at the University of Victoria, her focus is on macro photography of small organisms and the tiny plants that are found in nearby woods and gardens, giving people a different perspective on how they view nature. Being apart of many exhibitions around Vancouver Island to connect with the community and meet new artists, including the floating art galleries on BC ferries for many years.
I am a 21-year-old photographer who grew up on Vancouver Island, always enjoying nature and the forests that surround the area. I use the environment that I have been surrounded by as my inspiration to make art. My main area of focus is photography, specifically exploring a different perspective on things people walk past almost every day and go unnoticed. The idea of little things found in nature that many people just walk past and ignore. I have found that many things are missed in nature, and sometimes it's the best part about walking in the woods. My work is to show people that if they slowed down to look at things from another perspective, they could see amazing things that are not just what they see first. I challenge myself to offer people an alternative perspective to consider and to give them something else to focus on, rather than what they would see at first, just walking around in nature. Many of my photos include the presence of mushrooms or other tiny organisms that could be too small to be noticed at first glance. After printing these photos, I often encase them in resin to not only display them but to make them less delicate, so the viewer is less nervous around them. I have found in my past work that people are much more willing to get close and experience the work in various ways when it has resin protecting it. I encourage the viewer to engage more by making these little worlds more noticeable and putting them on display for people to take the time and look at them in different ways. Much like my photography, I use nature and the environment I am surrounded by as inspiration for my paintings. As photography is my main area of focus, I also spend a lot of my time painting. Many of my paintings will have a high contrast of colors to direct the viewer to focus on the subject of my painting, as I mainly use foxes to create that illusion, partly because I am fascinated with the bright orange color of a fox on a cold background. I like having a little subject being separate from the background to show how small and vulnerable things can pop out, showing that, in the right place, it can look much bigger or stand out more.
