Alex Cohen’s exhibit at Rodger LaPelle Galleries challenges traditional reality by exploring the malleability of time and space. He depicts dream-like images imbued with movement and emotion.
Cohen is a native Pennsylvanian from Newton who received his BFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2008. The show at LaPelle is his first solo exhibit
Transportation by Alex Cohen
In dreams we don’t always see things in whole form, yet we always seem to know what we are seeing. Cohen’s piece Transportation conveys a similar effect. It includes representations of various modes of transportation from horses to wheeled vehicles to space crafts, yet none of these are more than sections, blurs, or strokes that fully convey meaning without much detail. He alters perspective to better suit the movement of the piece.
Atomic by Alex Cohen
Movement is a key aspect to Cohen’s work, as seen in Atomic.
Some pieces are serene, with calmer movements and tranquil settings, while others initiate an unsettling feeling both due to movement and depictions. Oddly enough, the pieces in the show on either side of the gallery tended towards one of these feelings. A dynamic was created with overall chaos on one half and tranquility on the other.
Jesse Reppaport is a student at the University of Pennsylvania, in Colette Copeland’s writing art criticism class.