Generating Meaning
Many of Aarons most interesting paintings oblige the viewer to construct a story about whats going on. In one theres a forest setting in which two people stand close together, but are apparently ignor
Many of Aarons most interesting paintings oblige the viewer to construct a story about whats going on. In one theres a forest setting in which two people stand close together, but are apparently ignoring each other. A third person in the foreground is caught in mid-movement, half out of the frame. Are we seeing an argument, a conflict of passions, a game? Theres no point asking Aaron, or even Harold Cohen - they dont know. The picture is what you make of it. Its value lies in its ability to be what Cohen calls a meaning generator.
Over the space of a couple of days, Harold Cohen and I met and talked - in small Mexican restaurants and student coffee shops, in his studio at the University of California, San Diego and at his home in a quiet residential town up the coast from there. He was restless and, I think, glad of my company. His new family - a three-year old daughter, Zana, and her Japanese mother - were away visiting relatives in Japan. He was clearly missing them and feeling tantalised by the daily faxes in which Zana sent him her latest drawings. Alongside the obvious and abundant sense of parental pride, theres also a professional interest - an artists eye that has observed the early drawings of all of his children, looking for clues that may help his other offspring, Aaron, to develop.
This article appeared in the April, 2000 issue of PC Authority.
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