Victor Cohen-Stuart is a Dutch national born in the Netherlands and attended school in Europe, Indonesia and in South America. Victor came to California in the mid-1960's. At UC Berkeley he studied both architecture to art while focusing on super realism airbrush painting. Once professional, Cohen changed the direction of his work to a very personal level, inspired by his own self actualization, dreams and the reading of Jung. His painting tempts the viewer to exercise their interpretive abilities, but it also implies that the suggestion of a coded anecdotal content might be either illusory or imaginary.
In his work, traditional painting challenges sculptural intent, and an implied utilitarianism confronts fetishistic form. The material vocabulary of these works is painterly but the objects realized are constructions that seem to tear away from their supports. Implicit in his work is a contradiction between the ruggedness of a painterly Abstract Expressionist realized in 3-dimensional form and detailed color. A slickness that at times threatens to overwhelm the integrity of his art, but it is challenged when a particular vitality emerges.
'...In many ways the assemblages are conversations with the self, as letters to friends—each telling a developing story. The titles suggest a theme or embarkment, not an end or encompassment necessaily. The attempt is to create and deal with a language that expresses a vocabulary of moments, shifts and desires - that is, each day has different potentials; to express these, one must use a different vocabulary and language, not a series of sameness. So often my work jumps and changes. I try to show this as issues; humor and fun, awareness and contemplation, art and anti-art, questions and...' Jeremy Anderson
"This paragraph tells the story of my life and work better than I could have written in my wildest dreams." Victor Cohen-Stuart
