Buenos Aires - Perhaps more subtle than Juan Tessi's work, but no less powerful, Sibyl Cohen’s giant canvases (roughly 7'X7') delineate vast and palatial interiors. While they might be empty like Videla’s, her spaces do not resonate with the absence of figures. Instead, her paintings are of space itself. They masterfully exemplify the ever-persistent miracle of reproducing the three dimensions of the outside world onto the two dimensions of the painting’s surface. Or, vice versa, they transform the two-dimensions of the painting’s surface via the illusion of the three dimensions of the outside world.
And, more precisely, we can feel the tension when that reproduction and transformation happens. Cohen's illusion is not perfect: it oscillates between the abstract two-dimensional shapes on the canvas and the illusion of three-dimensional space these shapes can trick our eye into believing. Her paintings seem to represent that very moment when illusion begins to gel.
Cohen’s large scale and prominent line depict a space that draws in and surrounds the viewer. This, combined with her matte surfaces, recalls frescoes, especially those of the Italian Renaissance. As a time when horizons – geographic and philosophic – were broadened and the wonder of discovery infused all practices, this Renaissance wonder in turn imbues Cohen’s paintings. So while her interiors might seem old and formal, they are nonetheless transformed anew. By way of perspective and paint, Cohen gives us that same sense of dizzying Renaissance awe when confronted with the illusion of vast space.
Nathan Tichenor
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