Dianna Bonder
"Coco Loco"

Coco Loco (Dianna Bonder) is a queer multi-disciplinary artist and award-winning author/illustrator of 14 books for children. She maintains a full time practice in her studio gallery on Gabriola Island, BC, where she works in resin sculpture, oil painting, and pen and ink drawing.

Performed by a wild cast of freaks, clowns, animals, puppets, and hybrids, Coco’s current project, Cirko Bizzaro, extends the long tradition of the circus freak show. She is especially fascinated by the aesthetics of “the cutesque” — that moment where something cute suddenly becomes creepy and weird. While her work is informed by artists such as Gorey, Sendak, Ryden, and Witkin her primary inspirations are her imagination, and her everyday life.