Bend painter Kristine Cooper’s piece captures the summer concert experience

No words can describe watching the sunset while your favorite band is playing along the Deschutes River at the Hayden Homes Amphitheater in Bend.

Perhaps capturing that feeling is best left to someone who can draw it.

Enter Bend’s Kristine Cooper, who has created a commemorative limited-edition poster to celebrate the Hayden Homes Amphitheater’s 2024 concert season. The posters are available at the amphitheater during concerts and at the Ticket Mill in the Old Mill District.

“It’s one of those amazing moments,” Cooper said of attending concerts at the amphitheater. “So I wanted to kind of capture how the sky transforms the feeling there.”

Cooper, 30, is a Bend-based landscape and abstract painter who was chosen by the Hayden Homes Amphitheater to create the venue’s inaugural art-based summer concert poster.

Cooper, who moved to Bend in 2017, has had her art featured in the Old Mill District during First Friday Art Walks and recently was Sisters Coffee’s artist of the month.

“Her pieces at Sisters Coffee jumped off the wall,” said Old Mill District marketing director Beau Eastes. “We knew pretty quickly we wanted to collaborate with her. Our plan is to create a unique piece of art to celebrate every concert season going forward, similar to what we do with our Winter Art Series.”

The Old Mill District started its Winter Art Series in 2017 as a way to highlight local artists through its holiday and winter marketing campaigns. Each year a different artist is commissioned to create a custom piece of art that’s then used in various marketing elements for the district.

Cooper is the first artist for a similar campaign that will highlight the Hayden Homes concert season each summer.

“I am super grateful for being selected and for being part of such a fun and special project,” Cooper said. “Especially the first one, that is super exciting. I feel like it came out really fun and vibrant, and in a way that really spoke to Central Oregon’s landscape.”

Cooper’s work is a brightly colored, intricate homage to Central Oregon summers that depicts the sunset, Mount Bachelor, the Deschutes National Forest and the Deschutes River.

While Cooper said she typically hand paints her artwork, for the concert series she used her iPad and sketched the concepts outside on location.

“I went to the Deschutes River and began sketching an idea,” Cooper said. “I finalized it once I got back to the studio. I normally do everything with textures and paint, but I feel like for this one it was kind of fun to take it outside and start it in the location.”

Cooper said she has always focused on using bright colors in her artwork, just like the ones used in her poster.

“That’s just something I am really drawn to, and just how they make you feel,” she said. “It instantly gives you dopamine, and instantly makes you feel good.”

Cooper said she also enjoys connecting with people in Central Oregon and how all of her pieces speak differently to different folks.

“What one person sees might be different than others,” she said. “I just really love how people have their own interpretations.”

Eastes said the amphitheater is “incredibly excited” to work with Cooper to launch the new art series.

“Her piece is so vibrant, and just the ideal way to start this series and highlight our concerts in Bend,” Eastes said.

Cooper was raised in Spokane and attended Seattle Pacific University where she earned her art degree. She relocated from Seattle to Bend in 2017, after a friend encouraged her to consider a move to Central Oregon.

“I just drove down by myself and checked it out on a First Friday Art Walk,” Cooper recalled. “There’s so much of an art community, and people are really supportive and the town is just settled in nature. I felt like it was perfect for me to move somewhere that fit my lifestyle and would provide a natural fit for art.”

Cooper added that she does not believe she would be an artist if she had not moved to Bend.

“I was struggling in Seattle to make it,” she admitted. “When I moved here, I felt like I found my groove, and I had shops that were willing to start featuring my work. I was able to start expanding and growing and gain confidence enough to put myself out there.”

And now she is the first artist to officially capture the bright summer vibes of attending a concert at the Hayden Homes Amphitheater.