Preview: Kim Cogan – Evergreen @ Hashimoto Contemporary [SF]

The first piece that I remember seeing by Kim Cogan, was called “Midnight Spotlight.”  I found it while looking through available prints on the website for the Detroit fine art publisher, 1XRUN and was immediately drawn to it.  I clearly wasn’t alone in my affection for the print; it was sold out.  Back when I worked a graveyard shift at a downtown Seattle hotel, I would often joke that crackheads were like moths, drifting into the lobby during the wee hours of the night, because they were pulled in by the tractor beam of any space with an open door and a light on.  The San Francisco-based painter accomplished a similar feat with his emotive rendering of an ominously lit corner store at night.  “MIdnight Spotlight” did that for me, it sucked me in.  What I noticed immediately is that Cogan wasn’t just painting still life or environmental work, he was capturing the emotion and the feeling of a space, particular moments in time, and how it all merges together into an experience.

This Saturday, September 7th, the Hashimoto Contemporary gallery will host Cogan‘s latest collection of work in a solo show titled EVERGREEN.  Held at their San Francisco location, the pieces in this exhibit will continue to showcase the artist’s particular style of painterly jazz, where the strokes that he doesn’t paint are just as important as the ones that he does.  These pieces capture something beyond photorealism, which can often be incredibly sterile.  In fact, one obstacle that can often face photorealistic work is that, in real life, everything isn’t in focus for the human eye.  Kim‘s paintings play with that depth and perspective, but take it a step further by suggesting fog, or mist, as if the air is breathing.  These are like the moments you fall into, the ones that engulf and suspend you, that hit like a surprise when you aren’t searching for them.  They’re like instant nostalgia that you experience in the moment and forget almost instantly, the sort of inexplicable and intangible qualities that are only resurrected when they are triggered by a similar moment that can never quite be verbalized, only felt and experienced.  It’s what poetry reaches for, because language in its usual context and usage falls short.

If you’re in the Bay Area this weekend, make sure to hit this one up.  Go remember experiences that you can’t quite place and be nostalgic for something that never happened, yet exists out of reach in the collective consciousness.  Be uncomfortable wondering if you’re the only one feeling what you do; then acknowledge that the man who painted it has clearly felt these same emotions of the golden hour and marveling at the beauty of humanity and the natural light turning our industrial garbage and warn down dreams into monuments and relics.  Know that the others around you are caught in the same hypnotic fog of their own humanity and embrace it collectively.  Or… you know, just look at some cool paintings, because it’s nice to have that available to you on your doorstep.  Think about how people like myself can’t make it, because I will be thousands of miles north celebrating my son’s 8th birthday and trying not to think about how it’s the anniversary of 2Pac getting shot.  Don’t sit and home and cry listening to “Dear Mama,” when you can get out of the house and do something that makes you feel cultured.

Check out the preview images for the exhibit below the following event details…

WHAT:

EVERGREEN
Solo exhibit by Kim Cogan

WHEN:

Saturday, September 7th, 2017
6pm-9pm

WHERE:

Hashimoto Contemporary
804 Sutter Street
San Francisco, California 94109

ADDITIONAL INFO:

Opening is ALL AGES w/NO COVER
Artist will be in attendance
Show on view until Saturday, September 28th
Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/358677275084778/