Adam Cohn

The exhibition Backyard by Adam Cohn features two painting series: one depicting the empty streets of southern Tel Aviv, and the other portraying orchard trees from Cohn’s garden in the rural town he moved to during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The urban landscapes draw inspiration from the Spanish realist painter Antonio López García’s series of Madrid street views. Like García, Cohn explores the local light and atmosphere, transforming the bustling streets of Tel Aviv into serene, architectural still objects. His skillful naturalistic depictions combined with bold, expressive knife and brushwork, reminiscent of American Abstract Expressionism, render the modernist Bauhaus buildings of Tel Aviv into their fundamental geometric shapes. These paintings strip the cityscape of its usual hustle and bustle, offering a contemplative, almost meditative, perspective on urban life.

The lemon tree paintings provide a glimpse into Cohn’s current rural environment, and echo his childhood growing up in a Kibbutz; surrounded by orchards, a pastoral counterpoint to the urban landscapes. Inspired by a scene in a documentary film about García, where he is seen painting a tree up close, Cohn blends naturalistic depictions with bold, expressive knife and brushwork - combining a formalistic, abstract approach to painting with the naturalistic subject.

Adam Cohn (b. 1983, Israel) studied at the Jerusalem Studio School with Israel Hershberg, the JSS Summer Program in Italy, and sculpture with Jonathan Shan in New York.