BARBARA E. COHEN - showing up
BARBARA E. COHEN
showing up
June 13 - 29
Opening reception: Saturday, June 13, 6-8pm
artist talk with André van der Wende: june 18 6pm
Five Decades of Painting Resurface in Barbara E. Cohen's New Exhibition at Farm Projects
Barbara Cohen: Showing Up
On view June 13 - 29, 2026
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 13, 6-8pm
Artist Talk with André van der Wende: Thursday, June 18, 6pm
Wellfleet, MA (May, 2026) – Farm Projects is pleased to present Showing Up, a solo exhibition of new work by New York and Provincetown-based artist Barbara E. Cohen, on view June 13 through June 29, 2026. The exhibition brings together several series of paintings created on surfaces that carry the accumulated history of Cohen's five-decade practice. Recycled sailcloth, linen, and wooden panels house layers of oil paint built up across years of trials, experiments, and evolving directions form the material foundation of this work.
Of this exhibition, the artist writes:
"Showing up is arriving from a place of unexpectedness.... splash surprises sometimes, well received miracles or parts that come later, or become more noticeable as I rotate my work throughout the years. My joy is revealing many old marks and imagery which delightfully appeared, uncovering parts from years of painting. This is my process."
Each painting in Showing Up functions as a kind of excavation. Cohen returns to canvases and panels bearing the marks of earlier stages of her practice, recovering imagery and gestures that had been obscured, abandoned, or simply waiting. Rather than a revisions, what surfaces is revelation: the layered record of a sustained creative life made newly visible. Paint and the nature of the surface beneath it remain central to Cohen's approach. Her paintings, she writes, are "doorways to my daily living."
About the Artist Barbara E. Cohen (b. 1949, Lancaster, PA) lives and works in New York, NY and Provincetown, MA. She received her BFA from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with earlier studies in art history at Oxford University.
A multi-media artist whose practice spans five decades, Cohen has exhibited paintings and sculptures in numerous galleries and museums across the country. She has been the recipient of grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Artists Foundation Massachusetts Fellowship Program, the Polaroid Artist Support Program, the Blanche E. Colman Award, and the Cambridge and Massachusetts Arts Councils. Residencies include the Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice, Italy (2011, 2013), the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Skopelos Foundation for the Arts in Greece (2023), and the Cycladic Arts Residency on Paros Island, Greece (2024).
Cohen is also the author of numerous published books, including Provincetown East West (University Press of New England, 2002), Our Provincetown (Provincetown Arts Press, 2021), and most recently DOG TIME (Jane O'Hara Projects, 2025).
film by Mark Birnbaum
Join artists Barbara E. Cohen and André van der Wende for a conversation
inspired by Barbara’s current exhibition, Showing Up.
Together, they will explore the ideas, experiences, and processes that shape
Barbara’s work. The discussion will delve into what drives her artistic practice,
the themes that emerge throughout her work, and the personal and professional
influences that continue to inform her vision.
A Q+A with the audience will follow the conversation.
Free and open to the public. We hope to see you.
