Nancy Cohen

Gully

2016

Interested in the juxtaposition of fragility and strength – evident in our personal lives and the broader environment. Nancy Cohen is drawn to handmade paper for its transformative qualities, its potential for translucency, and its ability to be both skin and structure. These dualities allow the artist to merge material and content.

Her working methods allow an implication of the body in the work—its touch and tenderness, its frailty and endurance. In her installations, elements hang in the balance, each one necessary, vulnerable, beautiful and above all interdependent.


Nancy Cohen’s work has been widely exhibited throughout the United States and is represented in important collections, such as The Montclair Museum, The Newark Public Library, The Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Yale University Art Gallery and The Zimmerli Museum.

She has completed numerous large-scale, site-specific projects including for Thomas Paine Park in lower Manhattan, The Staten Island Botanical Garden at Snug Harbor, The Ross Woodward School in New Haven, CT, The Noyes Museum of Art in Oceanville, NJ, The Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, NY, Park HaGalil in Karmiel, Israel, and for Howard University in Washington DC. Her most recent installation Hackensack Dreaming was traveled and exhibited at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, New Jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ, The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia, PA and The Power Plant Gallery at Duke University, Raleigh, NC.

Cohen’s work has been reviewed in books and periodicals, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, ArtNews, American Craft, Glass Quarterly and Sculpture Magazine. Awards include five fellowships from the NJ State Council on the Arts, two from the Brodsky Center, a Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant, an ISE Cultural Foundation Grant and a workspace residency from Dieu Donné.

She has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, The Millay Colony, The Archie Bray Foundation, The Pilchuck Glass School, WheatonArts, Bullseye Glass and The Studio at Corning.

She currently teaches at Queens College and Pratt Institute.