Lou Cohen works with oil painting, dry pastel, and video. She is particularly interested in how these three mediums interact and resonate with one another. Her installations unfold as spaces where bodies, faces, conversations, and silences intertwine. Drawing from her close circle and her generation, she develops a form of “social painting,” most often articulated through exchanges between canvas and video. It is a subdued, often humorous theatre, where irony creates a necessary distance. Lou Cohen explores social environments—companies, couples, universities, studios—observing and reinterpreting them. Her films, tinged with a dry, biting humor, allow her to address gravity without heaviness.
A graduate of HEAD – Genève in 2021, Lou Cohen currently works there as an assistant. Her work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, notably at Galerie Metamorphika (2025), Galerie PhilippZollinger (2023), and will soon be presented at the Musée Jenisch Vevey and the Palais Athénée in Geneva. Her work has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions and institutions, including the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, the Fondation Pernod Ricard, and the Biennale de Paname. She is the recipient of several awards, including the Drawing Prize of the Institut National Genevois (2021), the Kiefer Hablitzel | Göhner Art Prize (2024), the Upcoming Filmmakers Award, and the Fondation Alice Bailly Prize (CH) (2025). She has also been in residence at Wonder/Fortin and POUSH. Her work is held in the collections of the Musée Jenisch Vevey and HEAD – Genève.