Cathleen Cohen

My work is concerned with space, movement across ground, and simultaneously, with the ground or space itself. Although I often use organic and natural objects as inspiration, say, light slanting through a window, or the way a grove of birch trees looks at sunset, my focus is not on representation. My paintings develop a lexicon, a vocabulary of tones, shapes and marks, all used to convey movement and mood. I am a poet as well as a painter, and most of these pieces relate to spoken words. The intent is that they stand on their own as visual poems. Any number of themes emerge; dancing, flying, synchronized bodies, conflict, nesting, things revealed, things hidden. This work relies on careful placement, the nature of the mark, and attention to edge. The ground can create a vast sea of space where color, mass and line reflect one another and suggest possibilities. The whole process is a metaphor. A blank page suggests tranquil waters, the mind in meditation, or the quiet in the lungs when we hold our breath. Breath leads to beat, heartbeat stirred up, unexpected rhythms, and poems. Poems circle below the surface of these paintings, vying for attention.