From a different Angle- "house & garden magazine"

Yair Cohen captures "negligible" elements of nature with his lens, and brings them up to the level of quality art

"The human eye captures thousands of frames in a single day, but no one really stops to look at them because we take them for granted," says Yair Cohen, a photographer who specializes in photo art. The frames Yair is referring to appear here as works of abstract art, which on closer observation are found to be natural elements, caught in the eye of the camera rather than on an artist's canvas. Yair's first encounter with the camera was at age 16. A youth who had difficulty coping with the school framework, he was fascinated by the world the camera revealed, and as he says, his studies at the Mousrara School of Photography were the first learning framework he succeeded in completing, and the beginning of a beautiful relationship with the camera.

Yair, a devout nature lover, takes his camera out into the natural world he loves, and most of his photos are the result of his sensitive observation of the environment, with its seemingly trivial elements and objects, which he reveals in amazing power and color. "My goal," he says, "is to bring out into the open, those details that aren't seen at first glance, but that evoke a magical world, a beautiful creation painted by nature itself. "

Along with the photographs he takes outside, he continues this observation in his studio as he experiments, with different angles or changes in lighting, to bring his photographed objects to its "limit" on the one hand, and create a new and different point of view with which to see it on the other. Thus, for example, through a process of trial and error he creates combinations of materials found in nature and documents their reactions and interactions, the moment of change and the differences. Among these experiments we can find close-ups of plants or liquids in movement, whose true identity, evident in the original photo, is not revealed in the enlarged and framed picture that results. Yair's pictures have a photographic quality that is presented as distinctly picturesque, a work of abstract art for all intents and purposes. His attraction to the unusual, the distinct, is expressed in his documentary photography as well, which, despite its difference from his artistic photography, has this same quality of the search for a new and fresh point of view.

Next month Yair will be appearing in the framework of the "Person of the World" fair that will be taking place at the Exhibition Gardens in Tel Aviv from the 12^th to the 15^th of July. After that he will be on a tight schedule: His two one-man theme-based shows, "Sky – Water" and "Three Faces of Jerusalem", will be on exhibit in France, traveling from Paris to Marseille to Toulouse. In addition he will take part in the "Inspired Art Fair", an international painting, sculpture and photography exhibition to be held in London.

Appreciation

On June 2004, Yair Cohen presented a fascinating photography exhibition at The Jerusalem Center For The Performing Arts.

His exhibition, "Sham- Maim", gained an enthusiastic echo from the theater's artistic committee, the audience and the art critics.

Yair's unique observation at the world through his macro lens exposed his onlookers to amazing, untouched new worlds and to a spectacular point of view on the world as we know it. All that is combined with a profound philosophical message upon human beings and their surrounding.

Yair is a young, highly talented photography artist with a distinctive delicacy, whose individual style brought an inventive breakthrough to the world of photography.

Noga Arad Aylon

Curator

The Bubble Boy- Amit Zvi

As a child, he was diagnosed as dyslectic * The School of Photography in Mousrara wanted to expel him * Now, Yair Cohen exhibits his unique photographs at the Jerusalem Center for The Performing Arts

At the Jerusalem Theater, the photographer Yair Cohen (24), a graduate of the Mousrara School of Photography, is presenting his first solo exhibition of photographs in Jerusalem. In 32 stills photographs which were processed with no computer intervention, in a technique which the artist refuses to disclose, Cohen attempts to connect the viewer with the mysteries of nature which, during his childhood, provided him with an escape from the daily copings and difficulties of a dyslectic, as he was diagnosed at the age of eight.

Noga Arad, curator for the Jerusalem Theater, explains her choice of the young photographer's work: "His photographs are fantastic. Neither I nor any of the nine members of the Art Committee have ever encountered this kind of photography. Using a technique that no one can explain and that Cohen refuses to disclose, he takes nature, mysterious as it is, and makes it even more so."

In his works, Cohen shows a world moving between the sky and the water, as he seems to capture the split second of contact in which cold air turns to water.

Cohen was born on the Ivory Coast, where the family resided due to his father's work in the World Bank: "My parents decided that my brothers' and my education was the most important thing for the family, and so we moved back to Jerusalem." As the child of a religious family, Cohen was enrolled at the religious school in Ramot, but ended up completing his high school studies at the Jerusalem Experimental School. As a student Cohen spent most of his time swimming, and later left the world of water to study photography for two years at the Dada School of Photography. In the meantime he enlisted in the IDF, his service including about six months as the personal driver of then Central Commander General, later commander in chief of the Israel Defense Forces Moshe (Boogy) Yaalon. According to Cohen, Yaalon then as now was a very busy man, so much so that they never wee able to conduct a real conversation.

Upon his discharge from the IDF, Cohen was accepted at the school in Mousrara; however, by the end of his first year he found himself facing expulsion because he had not handed in all his work. He managed to continue for two more years, and at the end of his third year again missed deadlines and was nearly expelled. The photogrsphs in this exhibition are what saved him: "Avi Sabag (director of the School – A.Z.) notified me that I would not be able to complete my studies. I asked him for one more chance, and showed him these photographs, and luckily he liked them."

The bubbles are a recurring motif in your photographs.

Yes, as a child, and later as a youth, I had trouble struggling with my dyslexia. I became closed and withdrawn, traveling whenever I could to the natural springs around Jerusalem, to the Dead Sea and other places where I could be alone and enjoy nature. I created a sort of bubble for myself, just me and my family and closest friends."

Were your eight years of swimming also a kind of bubble?

"Yes, of course. Swimming was a very personal experience, great adrenalin release and satisfaction. And in the water, you find true quiet, with time not only for the physical practice but also for liberation of all your thoughts and ideas, freedom from pressure."

And today?

Today life is easier. I gradually discovered that I wasn't alone. Little by little you learn that the whole world, with or without dyslexia, is made up of varying sizes of bubbles. There is the huge bubble we all live in, the private bubble each of us creates, as well as bubbles that surround different groups of people. Some of these bubbles meet and merge. I enjoy the fact that each viewer sees something different in the photographs. One may generally enjoy them all, a second prefers a few certain photographs, a third tries to figure out the technique that created them. But each finds something else to see and like in the pictures and that is the best result I could have hoped for."