THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 26, 1995 TAG: 9502240084
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
WHEN VIRGINIA BEACH artist Arleen Cohen was a child, she used to sit alone and ponder the origins of the universe.
Cohen, still youthful at 50, never stopped wondering about such things.
The subject of her art during the last two decades has been nothing less than the essence of life. She still dreams of distant stars.
Her watercolors and paintings are obsessively detailed metaphysical maps, tracing energy fields and interplanetary connections with a visionary's zeal.
Today at 3 p.m., Cohen will share her feelings about her work in a multimedia presentation at The Chrysler Museum.
Once a year, the Norfolk Society of Arts invites an area artist to give a slide lecture on their work.
When Cohen was asked to participate, she imagined she'd simply show slides and talk about the pieces.
But she didn't do that. Instead, Cohen wrote her own creation myth. Then she synchronized 250 slides of her own images with her recorded voice telling the story, adding appropriately primitivistic background music from Gabrielle Roth's ``Luna'' CD.
She spent hours in recording studios in Virginia Beach, achieving the effect she wanted for her presentation, titled ``Almost in a Trance.''
``I do think each one of us needs to have a ritual. A magic ritual. Somewhere you go where you are almost in a trance. Going beneath the surface, where you're not so tied to reality. Yet you're not so far from it that you can't be in touch with creation,'' Cohen said.
Cohen turned 50 in September. ``I think of this as a public ritual, my initiation into the next 50 years. What a great way!
``So it's sort of my journey. My journey back to the stars.''
Cohen's creation story begins in the beginning, when ``there is darkness and silence. Nothing to see. Nothing to hear. Nothing to feel. Nothing.
``And then dawn alights upon all. Perhaps it comes creeping. Perhaps it comes roaring in with the brilliance of a forest fire.
``The winds begin to sing. The oceans begin to roar. The fire begins to hiss and cackle, bringing hot colors to life. Powerful, powerful vibrations.
``A symphony of sound and color. And after this turbulent beginning, there is a great afterglow. A beautiful reddish color. And we see a piece of a falling star - outlines of creatures to come. A magic golden egg sprouting roots, sky roots becoming earth roots.
``We have arrived. More and more vibrations, more and more forms. More shapes. More color. And endless rhythms.
``The dance begins.''
The work is pieced together like a web, or a jigsaw puzzle, she said. ``I talk about a monkey queen, mermaids and mermen. Creatures from the sea to the sky. Snake. Adam and Eve. All kinds of things.''
The point is to remind people to remember what they have forgotten. ``That we are really here,'' she said. ``We forget, because we are almost in a trance.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
``Mouse Man'' by Arleen Cohen: Her watercolors and paintings are
obsessively detailed metaphysical maps, tracing energy fields and
interplanetary connections with a visionary's zeal.
by CNB