Jason Cohen

Biography

Sprirituality et erotism

by Tony Esposito

Long before becoming an art teacher, when Jason Cohen asked himself what and especially why he was photographing, an important process started. The body became an exploration of artistic freedom parallel to the sexual liberation of those revolutionary 70's. Then his reflexion brought him to explore christian mythology, images of Christ on the cross or angels superimposed to lovers with open arms.

The next step, in the 80's, led him to aesthetics inspired by the greek classics, with Apollo as the main reference. He then started to publish. From 1983 to 1988, photos appeared in Montreal-based RG and Sortie.

It's during 1988 that he really developed his own style by handpainting his photos with a large use of superposition and multiple impressions. Lawrence Boyle, then owner of the bookstore L'Androgyne in Montreal, offered him to expose. Four exhibits took place in the small shop: Homme in February 1984, Air in 1986, Erosrose in September 1988 and Espèce en voie de disparition in September 1990. Toronto's Idee Gallery received him in 1988 for the exhibit Visions Beyond Censorship. In November 1991, he was part of the collective exhibit Contrenature at the Maison de la Culture Frontenac in Montreal. In summer 1994, as one of the two Quebec photographers invited to the international exhibit Take It To The Max, at the Galery Soho 20 in New York for the Gay Games, Jason Cohen presented Initiation. Fall 1995, he does a solo for the Montreal Mois de la photo, displaying Priape, Petale, Pieta at the Observatoire galerie for a month.
Jason Cohen's work is very diversified. At the same time he's working in erotiscism, he photographes landscapes and flowers. Looking at the fusion of those fowers with the male nudes, something very close to Monet appears to our eyes. The omnipresent influence of mythology (greek and christian) creates a space where archetypes are mixed with new elements. By superimposing nudes, statues and historical landscapes (Pompei), Jason gives a new life to objects and places known as lifeless. The symbolism is constant, provoquing an emotionnal reaction, and even spiritual. Exemple, in joining death (Thanatos) and love (Eros) in the triptyc Priape, not only does the photographer share his emotion towards the aids drama, but he also depicts the pain and the hope connected to the subject. Like a shaman, Cohen offers to confront and exorcise the wounds, then transcend them to reach an interior peace.

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