Helensville Art Centre features Lilach Cohen’s 2 and 3-dimensional works, culminating in an installation inspired by her relationship with the sea.
Cohen takes viewers through her memories and passionate love of beach and bush, underpinned by her Jewish faith and identity.
Cohen immigrated to New Zealand with her family in 2003 and trained at Whitecliffe School of Art. Here she focussed on painting from nature, having been captivated by New Zealand’s spectacular scenery. More recently she incorporates sand, clay and spices in her work, loving the stimulus of all the senses, not just the visual.
The selected new paintings include works that are perfumed with spices and layered with embedded found elements. The whole is accompanied by a prayer to God ‘may it never end’ on DVD.
The exhibition will be officially opened by Pauline Denton artist and coordinator of Helensville Art Centre.
About the Artist
My name is Lilach and I have studied Art at Whitecliffe College of Art and Design. My Art is contemporary about Nature and the power of passion, which moves everything around. I am exploring the region between natural resources and the human feelings and Identity.
My art has taken many forms, from painting and mixed media to the large-scale 3D canvases Installations. My drive is nature and I source my own colours from nature, herbs and spices using sand, driftwood, turmeric, paprika, coffee beans and more!
Everything that I put in my painting has meaningful identity conceptual. Spices and herbs represent my childhood memories from mom’s kitchen as each medium has its own connotation to the human feelings.
I teach students to express themselves through art in the relation to their identity and the feeling they get of it, like I express my love to New Zealand and my belonging to this country and its nature by exploring each medium
I find painting to be the easiest and most concise form of communication and nature is a rich arena in which I explore and express emotion, intention, and challenge. Much of my work focuses on humanity and the environment and the delicate balance between the two.
In the past I exhibited in Helensville Art Center, where I found my art suits the holistic and organic community.
Please join us for the opening on Saturday the 6th of February at 4pm – 6pm
