Eileen Cowin. As Cowin Views It, Life Is Not Always a Fairy Tale. Eileen Cowin is a noted L.A. photo and video artist in midcareer.
She's spent some years thinking about fairy tales and how they relate to everyday existence. The latest manifestations of these musings are on view at Cal State Long Beach's art museum under the general title "Eileen Cowin: Returning to Ordinary Life. " A 4 1/2-minute video projection is the central theme piece. The picture alternates between a shot of a woman standing on a street corner and a close-up of brambles being carefully cut with scissors. Eileen Cowin. Every Picture Tells a Story: Eileen Cowin Plays With the Nature of Narrative at UMBC. Eileen Cowin was among the photographers who gained recognition in the 1980s for directly challenging assumptions about photography's supposedly inherent documentary quality.
She makes photographs that are obvious setups: carefully posed people and selectively chosen props occupy a brightly illuminated but shallow space surrounded by pitch blackness. The tightly staged vignette in a single photograph suggests certain narrative and thematic possibilities but resists being reduced to one storyline. Cowin often ups the ante by producing gridlike groupings or cinematic-style strips of photographic images; again, you're prompted to make narrative connections, even though you know this exercise will not lead to a neatly resolved end. Eileen Cowin. Untitled from Family Docudrama series 20" x 24" © 1980-83 ( and no, she is not using herself twice like I tend to do, that is her twin sister!
Seriously.) Untitled from Family Docudrama series 20" x 24" © 1980-83 A new find and a very cool one indeed. With over hundreds of exhibits (solo and group) since 1971, I feel I should get out more for not having seen her work earlier.