Atlanta, GA fine artist Jeff Cohen #artistaday

* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.

About Jeff

I am fascinated by the layers of chaos and order that I see everywhere. It’s the relationship between the chaos of blizzard and the ordered structure of a snowflake. My paintings serve as a metaphor for this effect.

The grid formed by the square tiles in my paintings provide a layer of order. This gives the painting a photographic effect as the mind composites the image from the individual squares. The tiles are each rendered independently of each other, adding a layer of chaos. Order returns within each painted tile, but breaks down into chaos again as I use a loose, lively stroke when rendering each square.

I didn’t come up with this theory and plan my art around it. Rather, as my technique has evolved my understanding of this relationship between chaos and order has evolved along with it – which goes back into the art.

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Jeff appears in the following Top 10 lists

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'Sunsets'

'Georgia'

'2010'

1 comment from the artist

"Thanks for the nice comments on my work! I'm sorry if the artist statement is too esoteric, I think I was trying to sound appropriately artistic. How about this: I take photos of things that strike me as beautiful or intriguing, then I split the photos up into squares. I use the squares as reference for each tile, which I paint separately. Then I put the whole thing back together, and am often surprised by the result! All that other stuff about chaos and order is true, I think, but I came up with it as I was painting. So it wasn't like this big cerebral art plan, it's just some stuff I observed about the process."

10 of 16 reactions from users displayed

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"ok, so your working on each tile individually but are you working from an image that is static, i.e. 2 dimensional- a photograph or are you painting at the site in question? If it's the latter then yes it works but if it's the former then you are merely re-creating something that has already been rendered."

"Thank you Jeff Cohen for having the courage to clear up the inflated statement. Your second try was clear as day. I wish the other artists on this site would be as clear. Many artists try to sound too intellectual with a lot of buzzwords that attempt to pump up art that is mediocre at best."

"I think these are wonderful & I like the magic series even more."

"These are wonderful."

"Why are people reading the name as "Jeff Chen"? Seems like chaos..."

"Not my cup of tea but I can appreciate the work involved in producing something of this type. I agree - this work would be good in a commercial setting."

"The art is beautiful, and I'm partial to his explanation of his work since my dad is a Physicist who has constructed many of his theoretical papers using chaos theory as one of his tools. I do believe that the second painting is a much better representation of the theme, however."

"I really dig the billboard piece, as it works for me as far as subject matter and over mood goes. I love the twilight sky."

"Thank you Jeff Chen. I admire your work, but would not have it hanging in my living room!Commercially, I bet it would make a huge success!Joy"

"I don't get it... help me understand"