Opening reception: September 4, 6 - 8 pm
Visual Artist Zoë Cohen will present a series of new works on paper in September, in her first exhibition as the Philadelphia Cathedral Artist-in-Residence for 2008-09. The sixteen small works on paper will be exhibited in the main chapel of the Philadelphia Cathedral, interspersed with the historical and contemporary stained glass windows of the Cathedral. The Philadelphia Cathedral's Artist-in-Residence Program invites one artist each year to create a body of work in its large studio in the Cathedral House, and to to contribute a permanently installed piece of art to the Cathedral itself.
Cohen is the Cathedral's first Jewish Artist in Residence, and What Was Our Vision is a series of mixed-media works on paper that she has developed based on visual research into the belief systems of the Ancient Near East. Zoë Cohen's work is motivated by her interest in origin, identity, and place. Her search for meaningful connections to the history of Judaism led her to explore the iconography and earth-based belief systems of the Ancient Near Eastern cultures that Judaism developed from. In What Was Our Vision, Zoë synthesizes invented imagery along with found iconography relating to earth, trees, water, sky, gods, and goddesses. With these images, she imagines what visions her ancestors may have had as they traveled desert landscapes as nomads and cultural go-betweens.
The setting for this exhibition is an important component to the meaning of the work. By exhibiting this series of images in the Cathedral space, Zoë hopes to draw attention to the historical and spiritual connection of all faith practices, as well as to offer a vision for religious imagery that speaks to a spiritual connection between earth and body.
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