Art in Review: Cora Cohen at Jason McCoy Gallery

The seven abstract paintings in Cora Cohen's show are materially spectacular, typically mixing acrylic, oil, raw pigment, pastel, polyurethane, copper, enamel and graphite in a single work. Her technique is no less complex. The painting titled "Extended Allegory" is built up from a ground of splashed stain, to which are added strokes of thick paint, driplike skeins, stippling, smooth areas of mottled metallic sheen, and here and there granular crushed pigment. The colors range from expanses of ultramarine to a membranous orange-beige, punctuated with spots of saturated yellow or red.

The results seemed designed to invite distant comparison with other painters, past and present. Both Jules Olitski's work of the 60's, all diaphanous veils and interior light, and Gerhard Richter's recent, self-conscious explorations of the charisma of gestural painting are brought to mind. That Ms. Cohen's work shares the very different conceptual ground of two generations is a good thing. It prevents her luxuriantly beautiful art from dropping into the merely decorative and keeps its essentially ecstatic, romantic vision under firm control.