Nancy Cohen
"Hackensack Dreaming" 2014
Glass, handmade paper, rubber, monofilament
Installation has two parts:
South wall is 20 x 11 x 13 feet
"Hackensack Dreaming" 2014
Glass, handmade paper, rubber, monofilament
Installation has two parts:
North wall is 17 x 11 x 9 feet
"Like a River, Like a Road" 2013, Metal, glass, shell, handmade paper, monofilament, rubber
36 x 15 x 8 inches
"Polyphony" 2012
Glass and monofilament
11 x 13 x 6 feet
"Spill" 2011
glass, metal, wire, rubber, resin, handmade paper
77 x 16 x 9 inches
"Perspectives on Salinity: River from Within" 2010
Handmade Paper, Wire and Salt, 2010
Originally designed as an installation for the Katonah Museum of Art "Perspectives on Salinity: River from Within" has been reconceived for the Burger Gallery, Kean University, Union, NJ
"P (n,k) [Combinatoric]"
2010. Glass, Resin, Rubber, Cement, Paper and Found Objects. 68 x 120 x 9 inches.
"Estuary: Moods and Modes"
53 x 11 x 18 feet, Handmade Paper and Wire, 2007
"Estuary: Moods and Modes" (detail of wall portion)
30 x 11 x 6 feet, Handmade Paper and Wire, 2007
"Only Connect" 1996, Staten Island Botanical Garden at Snug Harbor, Staten Island, NY. Handmade paper, vines, garden equipment
I am interested in the juxtaposition of fragility and strength – evident in our personal lives and our broader environment. Under that overarching idea my recent work falls into two categories. Work that references the fragility of our natural environment – developed through both a scientific and personal study of waterways and through collaborations with both scientists and environmentalists and work that is more about the individual navigating a perilous world.
I am interesting in working with processes that shares these dualities and allows me to merge material and content. I am drawn to working in both glass and handmade paper because I am interested in both skin and structure. I attempt to appear to defy gravity, incorporate light and exploit extreme imbalances in weight; all of this allows me to make literal the delicate, tenuous, ephemeral balance we all maintain. My working methods allow of an implication of the body in the work—its touch and tenderness, its frailty and endurance.
It is my goal that in this work, as in our own lives, elements hang in the balance, each one necessary, vulnerable, beautiful and above all interdependent.