Dorian cohen
Dans l'Intérieur des silences,
PARIS-B is delighted to welcome Dorian Cohen for his second solo exhibition at the gallery Dans l’Intérieur des Silences, where he will reveal his latest series of paintings.
By means of a realistic figurative painting of classical tradition, Dorian Cohen focuses on the creation of urban imagery among landscapes, mirages and naturalistic genre scenes. Organized in a series of images, his work builds a genealogy of urban narratives by studying the pictorial and narrative mechanics at work between each of these series.
‟ (…) Dorian Cohen paints everyday life scenes of seemingly happy banality. Yet, noticeably, between the more or less vigorous folds of the drapes, the more or less vivid drama of a family unspoken truths is felt, in the scarlet flush on cheeks after a game of football with friends, the gratitude of a generation’s memories can be read.
[…] It is indeed this rise in tonalities of the scenery that reveals the psychological depth of his subjects: a couple at daybreak or at bedtime, of whom we do not know whether they have just quarreled or whether they are resigned to the hum of life, but whose immense and magnificent carmine red drape of the bed cover perhaps says everything about their conjugal passion;
[…] A little boy fascinated by a glowing lantern or day-dreaming in front of a window with translucent opacity; an old woman in her kitchen in a subdued darkness betraying the inevitable loneliness of old age; a young girl sitting in a small neighborhood restaurant with Japanese decor that seems to be the sign of a family line that she must pursue. Scenes lived or observed during urban wanderings.
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[…] Fascinated by Vallotton, Millet, Toulouse-Lautrec, but also by the lesser known Emile Friand and Rémy Cogghe, his descriptive painting, and especially his reflective figuration, have the same charm as these painters. In fact, each element of the decor, for which the eyes delight in their finesse, respond to each other and make sense.
(…) Zola, Maupassant, are not far away, intellectual guides of a pictorial neo-naturalism aimed at scrutinizing the negative aspects of our lives. What we do not look at, what we do not talk about, but which shapes us and builds our destiny in spite of ourselves. And it is in everyday life that this social determinism is most strongly perceived.
[…] Cooks at work in the back of a restaurant, a secret conversation between two friends, a young father’s feelings towards his little boy… Curved backs, frozen looks, gestures in the waiting, always silent poses, introspections: everything indicates a certain weight of existence while on the wall, hung as clues for the wise eye, a poster of an exhibition of Toulouse-Lautrec or Félix Vallotton resonates as a painter’s nod to his elders but also as a claim to a certain kind of painting that is not dead.
[…] It is a cycle that the artist seeks to tackle, and not a simple series, wishing for his paintings to evolve with his characters in the manner of an intimate chronicle of our time, over the long run. Dorian Cohen’s pictorial novel has just begun. ”
Extract of the Press Release
by Julie Chaizemartin – Journalist & Art Critic
Catalogue of Works
BIOGRAPHY
Dorian Cohen is a young French painter born in 1987. He lives and works in Paris. While having a degree in urban design and engineering, he is a self-taught painter. His paintings were revealed to the art world in 2017 during the 62nd Montrouge Salon. The following year, he won the Colas Foundation Award, and in 2019, he was nominated for the 10th edition of the Sciences PO Contemporary Art Award.