Winston Wächter Fine Art is pleased to announce its fifth exhibition of New York-based painter Ed Cohen, A Calm madness. Named for a line by the late Polish poet Adam Zagajewski, the show will include two groups of paintings in fluid acrylic on canvas and panel.

The first cycle, which Cohen calls Wordless, is inspired by the legacies of the late 17th century Zen Master and artist Hakuin Ekaku and the 18th century Zen monk Ryōkan Taigu, and consists of serene, centrally poured forms on monochrome grounds, many legible as circles. Each composition builds on the tradition of the Enso, a sacred symbol of Zen Buddhism representing the infinite, the void, and the cycles of life. As is typical of the Enso tradition, the cycle explores perfection and imperfection, each work creating what the artist describes as a ‘unique wordless world’. The circle has been a frequent motif in Cohen’s paintings, but in this new series their dimensions have grown. The volume and weight of the paint necessary to create them has also increased, with some pools consisting of as much as one gallon of paint weighing twelve pounds when wet. In I dream of my pilgrimage and Moonlight fills the room the circles have developed deep fissures due to fluid acrylic’s tendency, over weeks of drying time, to crack or ‘craze’. For Cohen, these cracks allude to the Japanese tradition of Kintsugi pottery, in which breaks are repaired with gold, silver or platinum. The cracked masses ask the viewer to experience paint as a sculptural – and metaphysical – material.

The second group of works, the Explosions, consists of tempestuous explosive central forms evocative of the universe’s beginnings. The palette of Explosive awakening is both cosmic and electric, featuring fluorescent pinks and purples, golds and blues. The splatter of paint conjures, as in the Wordless paintings, moments of contemplation. The instant of the origin of the universe is beyond human comprehension or language.

A Calm madness asks its audience to stop, meditate in the moment, and consider how an encounter with a painting might become a long-term connection.

Ed Cohen (b. 1942) studied English literature at Amherst College and law at the University of Virginia. He has exhibited extensively in the United States and internationally, including solo shows with Winston Wächter Fine Art, New York and Seattle, Jeannie Freilich Contemporary, New York and Artgate Gallery, Seoul. Ed Cohen’s work has been featured in Artnews and acquired by many public, private and corporate art collections including the Princeton Art Museum and the Mercedes Benz Stadium.