A concentrated look at the work of Joseph Cohen reveals an artist whose work although adherent to concrete painting generates multiple conversations about nature and our environment with an integral expression that is refreshing. Reclaimed orphaned paint is Cohen’s primary medium recycled from hardware and home improvement stores. Interesting in that it creates a random found palette varied with season or personal choice. The idea that someone chose a particular color as a beautiful one to live with and then changed their mind on a whim is fascinating to ponder as the color is reinvented with layers upon layers of other random choices that would have been tossed aside.
.A correlation to hitting rock bottom, Cohen utilizes these found materials in an attempt to give them a second chance. A new life in a painting that will combine with other colors of his found palette to reinvigorate a new life. Layer by layer by layer each hand brushed and left for a whole day to dry the paintings are developed slowly taking as long as two years or more from start to finish. Layers built over time, one at time speaks to the integrity of doing something with repetition to achieve a specific result. Cohen asks the question "what can paint do as vehicle to express itself, within the confines of its own limitations"? Exposing, exploring and pushing the envelope of the material itself Cohen works with the laws of gravity. The viscosity of the paint affected by gravities pull builds up stalagtites which create three dimensional elements that build upon paint as the surface itself.
An approach that provides rich experiences for the viewer and an incessant engagement to interact, being the driving force to create something outside of him that is really larger than himself. Cohen’s work is primal,relative to its medium yet it goes beyond in that it comments on nature as well. Stalagtites remind one of cave rock formations .and a certain light that hasn’t been seen before planes of color paint on top of paint becomes the surface alluding to nature as a comment on the green movement which has gained strength in the last years. In choosing colors there is no hierarchy yet white is pure ultra white, chosen as a breaking point or tabula rasa that generates stillness in his work. As we walk around a painting to view it from different angles it becomes clear how the layers of color recede or push forward in relation to one another. Viewing takes on dimension from each perspective as seen at different angles. Cohen is fascinated with the idea that one can create so much from so little. Insights an artist might leave behind include reference to a self generated life of living true to ones own definition. . Looking at a work of art one can derive different meanings the longer one truly observes. Varied contexts add to the depth of an experience as well and articulate a work of art in the broadest possible context.
Cohen’s art is in different stages of development with a new body of work currently in production. Triptychs feature a central panel that deals with light and color transparent pure pigment reflects layers of liquid light. The panels on either side of the center isolate color or represent non color often activating a dialogue of light back and forth from the central panel. A direct monochrome occurs when you deal with the medium of paint as a vehicle creating conversation within a reliquary that opens and closes surface to center and back again, enhanced by the actual physicality of hinges that allows each triptych to open and close. Saturation, transparency, slick surface are all experienced and explored within a larger vernacular relative to Art History in that choices are made for a specific reason.
Approaching the work with a genuine humanness Cohen is attentive to what the work requires. It is in part a dialogue with the work he creates while remaining his own harshest critic. A painting must filter through a series of criteria to be amongst those shown. Do the edges contain visual weight? Is there a proper fusion of surfaces? When is one more layer superfluous to the content of what the painting is trying to convey? A vast knowledge of what has come before him in the history of art combined with extensive research on the capacity of various paints is the basis of his creative process. Cohen remains in the inquiry constantly asking the questions how my work has evolved. What would it take to reinvent something that didn’t work? Not in an attempt to fix something but as the impetus for a new discovery that could potentially lead to a whole new body of work.
The art worlds rising star will evolve primarily because his work remains an evolution in inquiry. Joseph Cohen Forging the Concrete now on view at Wade Wilson Art www.wadewilsonart.com
LAYER BY LAYER WITH JOSEPH COHEN
Stacey Holzer
Proposition 141 (Back view)
Reclaimed latex, enamel, stain, acrylic and enamel on pine
49" x 40.5" x 6-45"
Proposition 138
Reclaimed latex, enamel, automotive paint, and latex on walnut
54" x 39" x 2"
Proposition 130
Reclaimed latex, enamel, automotive paint and enamel on oak, cedar, and pine
41" x 38" x 4"
.
