Artist Highlight: Sandy Cohen
Sandy Cohen
No Church in the Wild, 2019
Oil and acrylic paint on canvas
60 x 60 in (152 x 152 cm)
Born in Israel and raised in New York City, Sandy Cohen’s work often reflects upon the world around her in vivid, precise paintings full of color and irony. A prodigious talent, Cohen has been painting since she was an infant, self-taught until the age of eight, when she became the youngest person in a college course provided by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Cohen’s mastery of painting was so complete that she sold her first piece at the age of thirteen.
However, Cohen’s promising career was put on pause when she underwent a harrowing health journey that resulted in a multi-systemic collapse in her body. In and out of hospitals constantly, Cohen spent the next five years bedridden, and seven after that in a wheelchair. While fighting for her life, Cohen found comfort and escape in her artwork, drawing and sketching when she felt physically able. When it was impossible for her to live a normal life, art provided a way to see beyond her struggle in reality.
In 2017, Cohen re-emerged on the art scene, ready to take on the challenge ahead. Within a year, her works were being featured in major art fairs and galleries, as well as museum in South America. Her works can also be found in the collections of many prominent collectors, including two separate royal families.
Sandy Cohen
There’s Simply No Polite Way to Tell People They’ve Dedicated Their Lives to an Illusion, 2020
Oil, acrylic and pastels on canvas
36 x 48 in (91.5 x 122 cm)
Cohen’s body of work is vibrant and varied, a reflection of her relationship with the world around her. She combines figures from popular culture, such as Disney cartoon or Looney Tunes characters, with abstract, often colorful backgrounds. Her work often features elements of graffiti-style art, appearing messy to the untrained eye but actually showing great precision. She embraces the use of words and phrases in her paintings, allowing the viewer a peek inside her head as she creates. Frequently, she uses well-known quotes (from literature and music alike) to emphasize the message she intends to share with the world.
Cohen is unafraid to tackle serious issues in her own honest, compelling way. Her work is often boldly (and sometimes darkly) ironic, taking messages about the greater world around us and combining them with beloved childhood characters and pop culture icons. In her piece above, “There’s Simply No Polite Way…”, Cohen takes beloved character Alice from “Alice in Wonderland” and gives her a darker edge, both metaphorically and in the literal sense, surrounding Alice with black paint. And while her piece “No Church in the Wild” (seen above) lacks the colorful variety of some of her other pieces, in it Cohen embraces her darker side. She combines the wild and the civilized, painting the head of a wild animal on the body dressed in a suit. The juxtaposition fits perfectly with the quoted line from Kanye West and Jay-Z’s song for which the painting is named.
Sandy Cohen
Money, Power, Respect, 2020
Oil, acrylic and pastels on canvas
36 x 48 in (91.5 x 122 cm)
Sandy Cohen’s body of work is complex and layered, covering a wide range of topics. While some are cheeky winks via characters from pop culture, others brush upon heavy topics that move the artist, such as the Black Lives Matter movement and the Holocaust. No one word could be used to describe Cohen’s works, as they each are unique in both their message and their composition.
These days, Cohen primarily creates from her studio in the Hamptons. She still struggles with her health as her symptoms wax and wane, but remains confident and determined in her art. She hopes her journey can serve as an inspiration to others to never give up.