Alex Bradley Cohen “Flat Top”

Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

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Nicelle Beauchene Gallery presents Flat Top, its first exhibition with Chicago-based artist Alex Bradley Cohen.

In the portraits on view here, Cohen paints friends and acquaintances with a novelist’s mind and an expressionist’s eye. These paintings, most of which picture people in domestic settings, offer familiar and deeply personal accounts of their subjects. They are built from time spent, conversations, and camaraderie. While resolutely focused on capturing individuals, Cohen’s paintings also function collectively as a self-portrait. In telling these myriad stories, Cohen also tells his own.

Cohen finds meaning in people’s particularities, but his formal approach is expressionistic not exacting. The show’s title, Flat Top, makes reference to both the Def Jam era of hip hop and the modernist mandate to flatten space and abandon mimesis. The shapes of his figures recall Giorgio Morandi’s warbly vessels bedecked with David Hockney’s sartorial details while occupying Horace Pippin’s interior scenes. Cohen collapses space or stretches it out — furniture, limbs, and environment hum together. Moreover, in utilizing bold and saturated hues, Cohen’s vibrant palette pulls equally from Mary Heilmann, Bob Thompson, and the colors popularized by early 90s hip hop.

Alex Bradley Cohen (b. 1989) lives and works in Chicago, IL. His work has been included in solo and two-person exhibitions at The Luggage Store, San Francisco, CA; Mana Contemporary, Chicago, IL; and Carrie Secrist Gallery, Chicago, IL, among others. Cohen has shown in group exhibitions at The Studio Museum of Harlem, New York, NY; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, IL; Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY; and The Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA. Additionally, he will have a solo show at Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago in Fall 2018. He is a 2014 alumni of the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture.