CLINTON, NJ.- The Hunterdon Art Museum, the region’s premier venue for contemporary art, craft and design, is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of the work of Jersey City based artist Nancy Cohen. The exhibition will open on June 10, 2012 and continue through September 9, 2012. There will be an opening reception for the artist on Sunday, June 10 from 2pm-4pm.
Nancy Cohen creates forms that embody opposing forces. Her sculptures, comprised of glass, resin, handmade paper, wax, metal, and other found objects, are rooted in nature and in the world around us. By using materials as diverse as cement, glass and transulscent cords, for example, Cohen explores such opposing themes as fear and desire, and weight and lightness.
For her exhibition at the Hunterdon Art Museum, Cohen will show several new works. Her sculpture “Metamorphic Traces” (2012) reflects her interest in how objects appear when they are under water. Installed on the wall, the delicate wire framework holds together glass shapes of various sizes and colors, reminiscent of the fleeting glimpses one gets of objects under water.
“Imperfect Image” (2012) is a glass piece comprised of two mirroring forms. To create this piece, Cohen used a chisel to carve into a log. She then poured hot glass into the log, let it solidify, and removed the glass sculpture. The result is glass that is not perfectly clear; remnants of the original wood form remain rendering a glass piece that, at first glance, looks as if it may have been fabricated in some other material.
For a work produced as part of an earlier series of work, “In Pulverem” (2010), Cohen uses a shopping cart she found in a neighborhood near her home. She dismantled it, removing the actual cart, and covered the remaining “skeleton” in cement. Working in glass, she cast objects that seem to drape, like fabric tea towels, over the rungs of the cart. These glass objects serve no purpose, yet they are endowed with a personal significance. This work was a direct response to the increase in homelessness that Cohen has witnessed around her home, while, at the same time, it reflects the fragility of human existence.
Nancy Cohen’s work is included in many public and private collections. In 2011, she was artist-in-residence at the prestigious Pilchuck Glass School in Standwood, Washington. She has received grants and fellowships from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Yaddo, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, among many others. She studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, received her Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rochester Institute of Technology. She will exhibit at the Accola Griefen Gallery in New York City from May 18 through June 23, 2012.
