Michael Cohen is a landscape and portrait painter who resides in Columbia County, NY. He has been painting all his life. Michael was introduced to the art world at a very young age. “It’s something I’ve always done…I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t drawing or painting.” Michael is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts in NYC and received a BFA degree from Queens College, NY. As an instructor, he spent a decade teaching special education in NYC often using his art skills to inspire the creativity in his students.

Michaels art work has been shown in numerous exhibits and galleries: Pittsburgh Water Color Society – PA; Susquehanna Art Society – PA; Classical Art Gallery – NY; Wilderstein Preservation – NY; Merrick Station Gallery – NY; Veridian Gallery – NY; Silvermine Guild Gallery – CT; Lenox Art Gallery – MA; Impact Art Gallery – NY; Gazen Gallery – NY; Columbia County Council of Arts Gallery – NY.

Michael enjoys working with oil on canvas and gouache on paper. He paints directly onto the canvas with no preliminary drawing. For the most part, his paintings are representational. The emotions they evoke are powerful, yet subtle, allowing the viewers imagination to be drawn in. This is evident in “West Hill Road” (2008). In this painting, a crude and serpentine pathway winds through a forest of trees, their limbs reaching upward toward the sun.

Michael’s pieces vary in size and his technique of multi-layering allows him to achieve a richly-styled color. He begins with broad color areas adding layer after layer of color, creating more complex areas as if you were bringing a lens into focus. In his studio, Michael enjoys working on multiple pieces simultaneously, taking ideas from one painting to influence the work on another. He decides that his work is complete when he feels the idea as been pushed as far as it can go and further work will not improve the painting. “Every inch of the painting should give the viewer something interesting to look at…there should be no dead areas in the painting.”

While many of his paintings are landscapes, they all have to do with the passage of time and moments in time.