Anita Helen Cohen
till next bloom
Unbound Visual Arts, Inc., is very pleased to announce the opening of Anita Helen Cohen: till next bloom, curated by Ira-Iliana Papadopoulou, at Athan’s Café Art Gallery in Brookline. A public reception with the artist is Sunday, September 28th from 7:00 – 9:00 pm. The exhibition runs from 
September 4, 2014 through October 31, 2014 and is open daily from 8:00 am to 11:00 pm. Athan’s Café Art Gallery, 1621 Beacon Street (Washington Square), Brookline, MA.| MBTA: Green Line “C” | Handicapped accessible. Free wi-fi and air-conditioned.
The love of the flowers is the love of the real. It’s the celebration of nature’s beauty and splendor. Anita Helen Cohen‘s painting is here to remind us that the real can get magical in the blink of an eye, when it comes to the unexpected moves, the powerful colors and the poetic shapes of the flower world.
The exhibition features watercolors and pastels on archival and hand-made papers. The finesse of the chosen materials is underlining the fragile and exquisite nature of Cohen’s much treasured local and exotic botanical specimens.
In her sincere and uplifting floral “portraits” Cohen grasps “up close” the changing colors of the flowers in their magical moment of bloom. Placed in delicate abstract backgrounds her flowers stimulate our senses and make us want to smell, to touch, to recall memories of our own childhood gardens and to anticipate the moments of a future spring. Autumn is soon to be knocking at our door but, till next bloom, these natural wonders are kept alive and ravishing in Cohen’s paintings.
Anita Helen Cohen, a sustaining member of Unbound Visual Arts, lives and maintains her art studio in Newton, MA. With over thirty years of watercolor painting experience and a never-tiring passion for the floral world, Anita Helen Cohen captures nature’s beauty “up close” with “portraits” of rich colors and delicate forms.Her work has been exhibited in many group and solo exhibitions in Massachusetts including shows at: Milton Art Museum; Arsenal Center for the Arts; UForge Gallery; The Brush Art Gallery, Lowell; Newton Open Studios; Marblehead Arts Association Galleries; Cary Memorial Library, Lexington; Mayor’s Art Gallery, Boston City Hall.
Anita Helen Cohen has been awarded by the Milton Art Museum (Honorable Mention 1998), Beacon Hill Art Walk (1st Prize 2000, 2nd Prize 1998, Honorable Mention 1997) and more recently by the Marblehead Arts Association (Judges Award 2013) and the Hyde Park Art Association (3rd Prize, 2013, 24th Annual HPAA Art Exhibit at City Hall Plaza, Boston).
Ira-Ilana Papadopoulou, a member of the UVA Council of Advisors, has been working for the culture and education industry for over 12 years and has an extensive experience in planning and curating cultural programs and events. She studied Sociology, Communications and Arts Management in London, UK and then moved back to her native Athens, Greece to work in major cultural and educational institutions as cultural manager and communications specialist. From 2010 to 2012 she was an International Fellow at the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She currently lives in Brighton, MA.