Hespe Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new works by Kim Cogan. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, September 5, 2013 from 5:30 – 7:30 pm. The exhibition will continue until September 28, 2013.

San Francisco-based artist Kim Cogan drifts into an exploration of coastal landscapes in his new solo show, Flotsam.

By observing the environments and structures seen along the coast, Cogan brings together the sensibilities and techniques he applied to create his atmospheric city scenes and kinetic wave paintings and seascapes.

Cogan’s new work suggests a sensory experience of the landscape, mimicking the passing of time. His fluid brushstrokes render an atmosphere steeped in history, evoking a sense of weathering and abandonment as a testament to the consequences of both natural and manmade elements. With the eye of a true auteur, Kim Cogan can make the mundane unique, sublime and luminous.

Through his use of light, color and shadow, Cogan chooses to exaggerate a mood or overstate emotional content. “The painting is built up in several layers—some translucent, some opaque—in order to create depth,” says Cogan. “I often add or subtract details to focus the viewer on a specific area of the composition”. Cogan continues to astound with his remarkable handling of his materials and his insight into what makes a composition successful. This new body of work is his most dramatic to date, the glowing subject in stark contrast to the darkened plane of the surround. With this stylistic change, Cogan’s work takes on a haunting, ethereal quality.

The result is a complete visual experience, skillfully rendered, yet impressionistic—with meaning carried along in the eyes of the viewer.

Kim Cogan was born in Korea in 1977. He received a BFA from the Academy of Art in San Francisco. His work has been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, American Arts Quarterly, Artweek, Harper’s, American Art Collector and SF Weekly. He was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and lives and works in San Francisco.