Exhibition
The Dangerous Mind of a Bear, by Sue Cohen
4 Aug 2022 – 14 Aug 2022
Regular hours
- Thursday
- 10:00 – 16:00
- Friday
- 10:00 – 16:00
- Saturday
- 10:00 – 16:00
Free admission
Address
- 2 Ethelbert Terrace
- Margate
England - CT9 1RX
- United Kingdom
Travel Information
- Thanet Loop
- Margate
The Dangerous Mind of a Bear
An exhibition of paintings by Sue Cohen
The Lido Stores, Margate
The Lido Stores are pleased to present The Dangerous Mind of a Bear, a solo exhibition of paintings by London based artist, Sue Cohen.
About
Sue’s paintings bring a brilliant burst of colour to our gallery. Each painting is a gem that feels freshly squeezed from the paint tube. Paint swirls and weaves with a lyrical freeness which at once causes the figurative subjects to appear and at the same time fixes them and renders them immobile.
Sue’s preoccupation in The Dangerous Mind of a Bear is that of the ‘other’ and the reversal of norms in the familial social model. The apparent ordinariness of the family unit or social gathering is interrupted and questions about its authenticity are raised.
The figures in Sue’s paintings are posed in a way that suggests their source is photographic. While the fashion of clothes and hair date these figures in a time when a photograph was a thing you stopped and posed for as a special event. Something you wouldn’t see until it was developed and printed. Rather than as an almost constant activity that is instantly seen, edited, deleted, and repeated.
Something else is happening in Sue’s paintings beyond the posed figures and nostalgic evocation. There is an awkwardness that seems to stare out of the figures as they meet our gaze. The social gatherings seem to exclude us. The posedness of the figures suggests the company has stopped moving because of us. We’ve interrupted something, we weren’t invited, we may even have been the subject of the close exchange being made.
The paintings seem to be challenging us to a game of Chicken, our gaze meeting their forced smiles. They’re waiting for us to go away so that they can carry on. The tension is deliciously awkward.
About Sue Cohen
Sue was born in Hackney and works in south east London. She has an MA in Fine Art from Sir John Cass, London. Sue’s work has been exhibited throughout the south of England including London, Brighton and Margate. As well as an artist she is an active curator. Between 2012 and 2014 she ran Occupy My Time Gallery in Enclave, Deptford.
Her art practice ranges from sculptural, painterly and site-specific.
