About, and an Art Talk on Color
Yvette Cohen is a New York–based artist whose practice explores the spatial potential of geometric abstraction. Born in Egypt and raised in Paris and Montreal, her work reflects a cross-cultural perspective shaped by a sustained engagement with perception, form, and space.
She received a BFA from Concordia University, where she studied with Guido Molinari, and continued her studies in New York at the Art Students League, the School of Visual Arts, and through seminars in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. She also studied lithography at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop.
Cohen has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, including a solo exhibition at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. Her work was included in a curated exhibition at Kentler International Drawing Space, selected by Samantha Friedman, Curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints at The Museum of Modern Art. She has also been awarded residencies at the Nantucket Artist Association. Her work is held in private collections in the United States, Taiwan, Japan, France, Italy, and Switzerland. She lives and works in New York City.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Shape is the foundation of my practice. Through the positioning, interaction, and transformation of elemental geometric forms, I generate spatial ambiguity that allows space to extend beyond the physical limits of the work.
Working with shaped and stretched rectangular surfaces, I use painting to activate the surface and transform emptiness into a spatial experience. Across series—including Oil and Water Don’t Mix 1 & 2 from the Building a Square series, Shape Shift, and my current Beachair works—I investigate how geometry, color, and mark construct space rather than describe it.
In the Beachair series, the chair functions as a familiar form rather than a subject, opening the work toward abstraction and allowing perception and spatial relationships to take precedence.
Although each series employs a distinct formal language, they form a continuous investigation: how the simplest visual means generate an expansive field of perception.
ATOA's 63rd Open Studio Three Woman Artists on Color featured Yvette Cohen. Organized by Monroe Hodder and moderated by Barry Kostrinsky. 6/28/2021