Dan Cohen Creative Labs

09/27/2024

06/18/2021

Final shots and a few details of this project "Mini-Tahoma" I recently completed in with .art and for and the

The concept and design is by . Inspired by our relationship with the Tahoma glacier, and the embroidery patterns of her tribal heritage, the designs bring so much life and color to an otherwise severe construction.

The scope of this project was pretty wild. The surface is a 175' multi story concrete, Brutalist, decommissioned fountain. With all the nooks and crannies, it felt like cave painting at times.

06/12/2021

The Portrait Show IX

June 2021

 On View June 12–July 3, 2021
 Opening Reception: Saturday, June 12, 4–8 pm

The opening is today ! My piece, "Maria Prophetissa" is one of the paintings included in this simply amazing exhibition! Check out the show if you are in town, or online at their website

https://www.moderneden.com/collections/the-portrait-show-ix

06/10/2021

Love this woman sooo much! Had a lovely day last weekend at the Portland Rhododendron Gardens.

06/06/2021

I have a lot of affection for this series of small paintings I did for the Tiny Visions show at the back in 2019. When creating these I felt I had entered into an "Other" space, where I was shown these images rather than conjuring them up on my own. Experiences like this throughout my career has always made me question where these Images come from. Do people have ideas or do ideas have people? Where do you think your ideas come from?

06/05/2021

A little something I have been working on in with .art and for and

The first wave of prep is complete, now on to the final painting!

05/28/2021

I learned a lot about the direction I wanted to go stylistically when I painted this.

Stag in the City
30" x 20"
Oil on Panel
2018

Original and prints available.

05/28/2021

Starting to gather all the things for the next big project!

05/27/2021

Maria Prophetissa on her way to for their IX Portrait Show!

05/25/2021

Maria Prophetissa
Oil on Panel
30" x 20"

On display at in their Portrait IX show
June 12th-July 3rd 2021

Maria Prophetissa, otherwise known as Maria the Prophet or Mary the Jewess, was an early alchemist from around the 1st-3rd century AD. She is credited with the invention of several kinds of chemical apparatus and is considered to be the first true alchemist of the Western world. She is also credited with the alchemical precept, The Axiom of Maria: “One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth.”

This portrait developed in an unusual way, in that I did not set out to make a portrait of Maria Prophetissa. I liked a shot of a model that I had, and decided to use it as a basis for the painting. I arrived at the concept for the piece by looking at the image and letting whatever thoughts and feelings I had to arise. The idea of alchemy came to me quickly, but at first I pursued a more conceptional subject, that of the alchemical stages of distillation and sublimation. Much of the the imagery as you see it came before I knew anything about Maria. Slowly, it felt that I was creating a portrait of someone in particular, but did not know who. By chance, I came upon the historical figure of Maria Prophetissa while idly researching alchemical apparatus. It turns out she is credited for several apparatus that are still in use in chemistry labs today. One of these is the bain-marie (Mary’s Bath) which is named after her and is used in modern kitchens. I was surprised that I had never heard of her, as she is considered an important figure in the history of alchemy and chemistry. Perhaps she was occluded because she was both a woman and Jewish. I now feel as though this portrait is a personal step to reawaken her legacy.

05/24/2021

"Dream-Tender Angel"
Oil on Panel

Dreams are a mystery of consciousness. Why do we switch off our motor functions for about a 3rd of our lives and psychically put ourselves in strange and inexplicable situations? Materialism proposes that dreams are simply an effluvia of the thinking mind, a sloughing off of memories and experiences. Despite what this modern theory may speculate, I side with the majority of human history and say that dreams are a gateway to another realm of existence, or at least one that is interwoven with the physical. The dreamworld is as important to our human experience as the waking world, but most of us are too overworked and stressed out to utilize it. Dreaming at night and dreaming of a better world are linked somehow in their nature. When we dismiss our sleep visions as “only dreams”, what are we telling ourselves about our waking ones?

05/23/2021

🎵🎶Cats n Books, and Cats n Books, and Cats n Books🎶🎵