Scrappy as Ever, Spring Break Art Fair Remains True to Its Wild Roots by Sarah Cascone for Artnet
"I also loved the plush purple carpeting and shiny metallic walls serving as a beautiful backdrop for colorful relief sculptures and mixed media textile canvases in “Interplay,” a three-woman show curated by Rachel Gisela Cohen and Abby Cheney featuring their work and that of Yen Yen."
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Understory at Space 776 Gallery
Rachel Gisela Cohen
Understory
March 18 - April 6, 2022
Opening Reception: Friday, March 18, 6 - 8pm
37-39 Clinton Street, New York, 10002
New York, NY- Space 776 is pleased to present a solo exhibition by New York City-based mixed-media artist Rachel Gisela Cohen. The exhibition features Cohen’s recent works created from 2019 onwards.
The understory is an in-between rainforest layer with a damp and dark environment that rivals the bright outer canopy and foundational forest floor. In Cohen’s work a variety of materials including flashe paint, sequined fabric, recycled beads, and faux crocodile skin come together to create a theatrical and playful world; one that expresses Cohen’s fascination with beauty as well as her criticism of excess in contemporary culture.
Cohen draws references from aposematic organisms she observed in the Costa Rican rainforest as well as from drag and theater culture. Her collages of bold colors and decorative materials creates a composition made in response to her personal memories and experiences. As a whole, Rachel Gisela Cohen’s sequin-encrusted chromatic abstract paintings become an ecosystem of their own where a metamorphosis of various forms takes place. Relying on the unexpected coupling of paint and fabric, Rachel Gisela Cohen creates a hybrid medium that comments on the coexistence of natural and man-made environments.
Rachel Gisela Cohen is an artist, educator, and independent curator based in NYC. She has shown her work nationally and internationally, exhibiting at The Spring Break Art Show 2020, Armenia Art Fair, Pierogi Gallery’s The Boiler, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, and Hunter College Art Galleries. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Constance Saltonstall Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, COPE NYC, and the Montclair Art Museum. She received her M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from Pratt Institute and a B.A. in Art History and Visual Arts from Drew University. Currently, she teaches as an Artist Educator at the Museum of Arts and Design and manages the School of Visual Arts Artist Residency Programs in New York City.
Curatorial Project Exhibiting at Spring Break Art Fair 2020
https://news.artnet.com/market/spring-break-in-finnish-embassy-1471207
Featured on ArtSpace in Online Exhibition
Awarded Constance Saltonstall Fellowship June 2019
'Changing Room' at Sweet Lorraine Gallery
Rachel Gisela Cohen
Changing Room
May 3-May 25, 2019
Opening Reception: Saturday May 4th 6-9pm
Sweet Lorraine Gallery
183 Lorraine Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NYArtist Interview with WoArt
Solo Exhibition at Thomas Hunter Project Space
'Big Link' Young Space at Standard Projects
Interview on Young Space @yngspc
Awarded National Endowment for the Arts Creative Equity Fellowship
I am excited to announce that I have been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Equity Fellowship through Vermont Studio Center! This is my portrait from my residency in 2015, looking forward to returning as a fellow!
I am curating 'Half a Wave' at the Pfizer Building in Brooklyn, NY.
My work will be included in the group exhibition 'Boiling Point' curated by Regine Bashaat Boiler | Pierogi Gallery