Exhibitions

Lately Like a Hummingbird

April 20 - May 20, 2018

Jennifer Paige Cohen

Press Release

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Press Release

In Lately Like a Hummingbird, Cohen builds upon the language of her distinctive fabric and plaster sculptures and introduces a new series of wall works based on breastplate forms. Cohen’s sculptures are cast from the human body but also exist as abstract shapes. While in the past she has cast the works off the bodies of close friends, these are entirely cast from her own body, making them proximate self-portraits and records of her body at a particular moment in time. These recent works are smaller and denser than Cohen’s previous sculpture, with a more legible emphasis on the found fabric that she embeds into the plaster casts. Here, twisted fabric adorns the sculptures’ exteriors and is collaged on their surfaces in gestures that compress garment and body. Cohen seeks out previously worn garments and recently has intuitively moved toward patterns with bright hues.

Cohen’s new series of wall works are not directly cast from the body, but mimic the shape of the human torso by employing sweatshirts encased in plaster. These pieces call to mind ancient protective garments in the same way that the sculptures echo the forms of casts made for broken limbs. These particular bodies of work think through how anxiety affects us emotionally and physically, often on an interior level that we can’t see or understand. The reference to armor and casts speaks to both protection and regeneration. Titled after flora and the months of the year — the works look toward the passing of time and springtime renewal.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue with a text by Claire Barliant.

Jennifer Paige Cohen lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been shown in solo and two-person exhibitions at Salon 94, New York; Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York; and White Columns, New York. Cohen has been included in group exhibitions at Regina Rex, New York; September Gallery, Hudson, New York; Brennan & Griffin Gallery, New York; Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York; The Elizabeth Foundation, New York; Kate MacGarry, London, England, among others. Her work will be included in the upcoming exhibition Objects Like Us at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum curated by Amy Smith-Stewart and David Adamo. She has an MFA in sculpture from the Yale University School of Art and has received fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, The Corporation of Yaddo, The Marie Walsh Sharpe/Walentas Space Program, Civitella Ranieri and was an artist-in-residence at the Chinati Foundation in 2015. She was a recipient of a 2017 Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant.