"This heartfelt and revealing autobiographical installation by Joie Rey Cohen is autobiographical and touches not only on deep personal feelings and emotions, but also on politics, religion, gender, sexuality and more. It is rare to get such an all-embracing sense of another human being." ArtBusiness.com
Joie's fine art is empowerment of a queer, Jewish, working-class experience, where industrial meets nature, gender lines are blurred, and surreal is revealed. It is the place where subconscious and conscious collide, within a journey of overlapping textures, colors, and symbols. Many layers of identity; including but not limited to gender, spirituality, oppression, privilege, ethnicity, traditions, dis/ability, are represented, through high contrast, disguises, collage, and masks. These surreal and often genderless images, are a collaboration between subject and photographer. This work illustrates the energetic exchange between a photographer and those being photographed. Joie brings forth the individuality from people and places being photographed. Those being photographed become the self portrait.
Joie Rey Cohen earned an MFA in Creative Inquiry & Interdisciplinary Art, with a focus on Visual Memoir from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and a BA in Gender Studies, with a focus on Multimedia Art from New College of California in San Francisco. Joie has shown work on three continents, and in over ten cities worldwide. Joie works one on one with local business owners and artists in the Denver Metro Area and in the San Francisco Bay Area, teaching them how to design and maintain their own websites, and photographs all the fabulous people.
Joie's fine art is empowerment of a queer, Jewish, working-class experience, where industrial meets nature, gender lines are blurred, and surreal is revealed. It is the place where subconscious and conscious collide, within a journey of overlapping textures, colors, and symbols. Many layers of identity; including but not limited to gender, spirituality, oppression, privilege, ethnicity, traditions, dis/ability, are represented, through high contrast, disguises, collage, and masks. These surreal and often genderless images, are a collaboration between subject and photographer. This work illustrates the energetic exchange between a photographer and those being photographed. Joie brings forth the individuality from people and places being photographed. Those being photographed become the self portrait.
Joie Rey Cohen earned an MFA in Creative Inquiry & Interdisciplinary Art, with a focus on Visual Memoir from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and a BA in Gender Studies, with a focus on Multimedia Art from New College of California in San Francisco. Joie has shown work on three continents, and in over ten cities worldwide. Joie works one on one with local business owners and artists in the Denver Metro Area and in the San Francisco Bay Area, teaching them how to design and maintain their own websites, and photographs all the fabulous people.
Self Portrait in the Early 90s In Florida Somewhere
199?
199?
(c) Joie Rey Cohen
