The Jewish Museum Acquires Two Paintings by Alex Bradley Cohen
The works are the first by Cohen to enter the collection, enhancing the Museum’s ability to put forward a diversity of stories encompassing Jewish identity
Alex Bradley Cohen’s paintings are windows into both the artist’s everyday life and his process as a painter. Cohen lives and works in his hometown of Chicago, where his family and friends serve as the primary subject of his work in portraiture. In the artist’s words, “I believe that staying home, and grounding myself and my work in one place, has helped me garner a sense of intimacy and personal perspective.”
This commitment and degree of intimacy was further intensified by the pandemic, during which Cohen lived in the same apartment building as his mother and father. In the painting Parents #4, the artist’s dad’s phone serves as a portal to an outside world, with the familiar screen glow and finger scroll (so crucial to connection during quarantine), while the mother’s Matisse-like hand signals an attempt to reach outside, perhaps beyond the canvas.
By contrast, Parents #1 provides a dimly lit inward-looking view into what is presumably the subjects’ bedroom. We see Cohen’s father, shirtless, proudly sporting an endearing, tattooed ode to his wife, while his Bluetooth earpiece indicates a focus beyond the dream-like scene at present. Cohen’s mother seems to float in bed, her mug nodding back to her husband’s, in silent dialogue.
In much of his work, Cohen utilizes the process of painting to explore his own multifaceted personhood: “I felt that there was something within the diversity of marks, gestures and ways of drawing that spoke to a world within myself that helped me grapple with and begin to understand my own complex subjectivity.” It is the viewer’s extreme privilege to be let into this intimate conversation, which unfolds through Cohen’s keen sensitivity and generosity.
— Liz Munsell, Barnett and Annalee Newman Curator of Contemporary Art, The Jewish Museum
With thanks to Nicelle Beauchene Gallery and all Jewish Museum staff involved.
