Untitled (Poppies Against Clouds), 2011
oil on canvas
30 x 30 inches; 76.2 x 76.2 centimeters
LSFA# 12374
Bruce Cohen: Recent Work
April 28 - June 16, 2012
Butter-colored tulips careen towards the open window, their faces turned outwards in hopes of locating sunlight. But, in Bruce Cohen’s serenely unreal landscapes, gunmetal blue clouds swarm the sky. Cool, pre-storm light falls through lavender-framed windows. The sun has gone missing and the unnaturally elongated tulip stems curve and stretch in vain.
In keeping with the Old Master tradition of still life, Cohen infuses commonplace objects with a heightened reality. Coffee cups glow atop a pile of books. Each canvas features a supremely refined palette and carefully crafted composition. Yet, plums mysteriously happen to be the same rosy shade as the stripe on the tablecloth and anemones bloom from an almost unreasonably tall glass vase. A meticulous play of light and shadow throws the objects into sharp relief and slices into the background planes as if the painter’s brush had become a surgeon’s blade. Though the subject appears to be simply representational, the illusion created by the painting is surreal.
Though flowers ‘bloom’ in every image, these are still life paintings with a hard edge sensibility.
Cohen is based in Los Angeles and has been widely exhibited throughout the United States. This exhibition marks his initial outing with Louis Stern Fine Arts.