Artist Statement: NICOLE COHEN
In my first painting 1 course, as an undergraduate, I decided to become an artist and what drew me in was oil painting. My mentors showed me how to create humor and commentary using oil painting with abstraction with stills lives and the figure. This felt natural to me and I realized that art encapsulated all of my interests, theory, criticism, history, archives, making/ producing, performing, and contributing outlook into two and three dimensional works.
I hoped my paintings would act like a theater, so I created soundtracks for them, and videos that would illuminate them, by projecting directly onto the surface of the canvas. With no formal training in video I was nervous if this could actually work, but it seemed to, after my MFA show, there was interest in the work and this led to a gallery solo show.
Since then I have worked with video and new media, and have continued with painting and drawing, while exploring issues of how interior design and architecture reveals aspects of portraiture and identity. Many times using interior images from vintage magazines, period rooms, that reveal an intervention with technology of surveillance use or video projection overlay. I use photography to create video performance backgrounds and put performances and animation on top, which generates a ghostly synthesis. In addition to my video works, I draw and paint abstract works, that I plan to exhibit in upcoming exhibitions.
“She uses video to transform and alter interior designed and architectural spaces. She explores ideas of perception and surveillance through her projects. Her influences stem from film/cinematic theory and the physical experience of immersion.
Her work is positioned at the crossroads of contemporary reality, personal fantasy, and culturally
constructed space. Although, trained in painting and drawing, Cohen most frequently uses video as her
medium, playing upon intrinsic capacities to manipulate time, distort scale and environment, and overlay
imagery. Consistently interested in engaging her audience and challenging the notions of lifestyle,
domesticity, celebrity, and social behavior, Cohen also uses the surveillance camera to involve viewers in
their own voyeurism. – Getty Museum, “Please Be Seated”, Solo Commissioned Video Installation,
2007–09, from brochure publication.