Avichai Cohen is an unusual artist today in Israel, his style moving between the realistic and fantastic, Surrealism and the symbolic.
“In my work I refine the simple truth in man’s soul, his subjective reality and his search for the sublime and the objective.” This statement by Avichai Cohen describes his paintings of human figures on various sized canvases, reflecting his world perception as it meets the heroic and the ideal, the beautiful and the glorious, dreamlike and enchanting, leaving out the commonplace and banal. He paints the link between the life he lives and his constant Sisyphean wonderment at the idyllic truth. Following a series of surgical operations on his back which left him physically handicapped, in constant pain, always needing treatment, Avichai Cohen devotes himself to painting which thoroughly occupies him, giving comfort and an escape into imaginary universes and an alternative reality. Cohen’s riveting works are an autobiography that sheds light on all his interpretations of life. Life’s voyage for him is one of artistic discovery. Avichai Cohen who came to painting from a career in graphic design that turned to pure unadulterated art brings together in his works a personal message made up of scenes from stages in his life that feed his constant sense of wonder as he studies what exists and what is unattainable, the non-stop dream to touch and feel the moment of wakeful suspension. He is engaged in investigating the human soul and its symbiotic relationship with humankind, and the individual artist, the miracles of nature, the conscious and subconscious, spirit and substance, emptiness and endlessness. All are part of the Utopian puzzle that draws you into the invisible marvel within our lives.. Avichai Cohen set out on a long voyage of creation, a road paved with pitfalls and moments of grace. It started through a clear unfiltered gaze and here finally, laid on his canvases, are his honest visual creations inviting the viewer to participate in the experience, gaze, digest and offer your own comment as Cohen’s work moves the spirit.
Curator: Aryeh Berkovitch
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