Bernard Cohen Green/Blue Shape on Black, 1966

The acclaimed British artist Bernard Cohen's (b. 1933) tensely wrought and unpredictably complex pictures hold a unique position within the canon of contemporary art. In the late 1960s, Cohen positioned his painting within a substantially concentrated area of the canvas, creating compositions with a sole point of focus. Placed within an indeterminate environment of predominantly white or black space are irregularly-shaped condensed nuclei of colour, contrasting the foundation of the picture plane with concise, organic tangles of disparate forms. It was important for Cohen to methodically establish layers of paint to create a surface and succession of events recognisable through a shape's configuration. Within these compressed areas, Cohen both manufactures and dismantles a form, disconnecting it from traditional techniques of painting.