1993:
The tonality in my work has a lot to do with depth. Actually I want flatness in my paintings not depth. However, intuitively I still use the tones to create a depth – I can’t not do it! I think in the end I want this paradox in my work. Depth and flatness. As long as the paradox is not apparent there is no painting and I have to keep at it!

1993:
The plans in my painting are mobile décor pieces. However, they develop from the way the paint or other material is applied.

1993:
Colour influences the way you look into the canvas. Recently I had a good composition, a lot in black but the middle of the black area was too hard. So I changed it to another colour and then another… Then at last the middle area withdrew and became a whole with the rest of the canvas.So, for me, colour is depth.

2004:
In my work I often put a timeless and universal atmosphere into abstract images. These images emerge from a personal world of experiences, amongst other things a fascination for ancient cultures and mediteranean influences. I want to express the fleetingness of human cultures with references to remains of old walls, ruins of Greek temples or empty factories.

2004:
One could call my method of working intuitive – an exchange between emotional exploration and purely pictoral decisions. Because I want to leave the audience free to form their own interpretation of my work I find that naming the work is not a priority.

2005:

I feel closely related to artists of the New York school of the fifties. This is actually a better term than Abstract Expressionism.I know the work of a number of them and their development which really appeals to me; especially the freedom and spontaneity, but also the automatic writing and the ‘gesture’.
I came into contact with their work through the Stedelijk museum and the magazine “Openbaar Kunstbezit” (later Kunstschrift), and even later when I was studying history with history of art as an extra module. When you start painting abstract work you have to stop and think about what, how and why, and that took me to their work.

2005:
I just begin (painting) a couple of coloured lines, an area of colour, another area of colour. Then look and see whether I like it, sometimes for days on end.

2006:
An important theme in my work is the Myth of Oresteira for instance, (with her classic murder of her mother) that takes place in Mycene in the Peloponnesus. Also the reference of these characters to Jung’s archetypes. My work is often mythical and sometimes bloody.(Violent)? This raises associations with bloodbaths such as the head hunters of Papua New Guinea or the Dayaks in Indonesia and ancient sacrifices such as that of Iphigineia before the Trojan war.

2006:
Sometimes there can be a musical influence in my work, from jazz I happen to be listening to. Sometimes the influence is direct, by using my brush in time with the music. Here the gesture is directly determined by the music. Often music determines the emotion from which I work.

2006:
A totally different line in my work is my experience of ‘deja-vu’ (having experienced or seen something before). The deja-vu in my work has to do with second-hand objects from flea markets, such as razors, vacuum cleaners etc. In some of my work I paint these as abstract collections. But old,disused factories with the weathered walls of the empty buildings all evoking their own history can also lead to this experience.

2007:
Personally, the informal artists and their work really appeal to me. I love the material, the marks, the disorder, the coincidental and intuition of it all, the graphic art within.

comment of an owner

Hans Cohen

I have been collecting modern abstract painting since around the mid eighties. Colour and abstraction has, more or less, always been my guide. In the beginning I went for the colourful work of the Cobra artists. Allthough I could never afford to buy an original Karel Appel, I did acquire a couple of works from other Cobra artists. Later on I expanded the modest collection with works of other artists who where painting with an even so colourful palette. Later on my taste of art was shifting towards more and more abstraction. At first, colour and composition were the main focus. Some abstract-figural elements might have been present in those days. But now my focus lies mainly on the complete abstract art.