September 24, 2026
Eileen Cowin
Between Panic and Paradise
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
August 23, 2026 - January 3, 2027
Eileen Cowin
Eileen Cowin's thoughtful, intimate and arresting retrospective Between Promise and Paradise prompted me to take Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida off the shelf. His complex reflections on the essence of photography resonate with Cowin's exhibition. Cowin stages intimate private moments and frames them with precision and exactitude. Blending reality with and fiction, she seeks to document the emotional connection that forms with her subjects — be it her family, herself and her twin sister, or actors for hire — as they reveal aspects of themselves in front of her lens. That these scenarios are staged and not candid is key to Cowin's explorations.
Cowin's retrospective unfolds thematically rather than chronologically. Viewers first encounter a trio of mural sized photographs that depict book spines floating in black grounds. Although they date from 2018 they were printed in 2026. The books hang from the ceiling and were chosen for their titles — Killing Time, Waiting and Lost in America — that subtly foreshadow themes to come. Adjacent color photographs from the 2025 series The Uninvited Visitor are self portraits that do not feature Cowin's face, yet suggest emotional states like anguish or love. In one close up, the back of the artist's head fills the frame, her long, curly hair blowing erratically upward. Control, or lack of it, or perhaps more specifically the desire to take control of something that is not within our power is the theme of Cowin's haunting video Another Year Closer to Death (2026). In this ten minute piece, Cowin speaks to the viewer about her fears and anxieties around aging. Not without wit and including clever inserts from the TV series The Golden Girls, Cowin muses about growing old and dying. She asks chat GPT to describe a 90 year old woman, then she hires a make up artist to depict her at that age. The title of the piece comes from a birthday card she happened upon that proclaimed "Happy Birthday! Another year closer to death." Cowin is dubious about the humor in that sentiment.
Originally published in Art and Cake, September 11, 2026
To read the full review in Art and Cake click here.
Between Panic and Paradise
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
August 23, 2026 - January 3, 2027
Eileen Cowin
Eileen Cowin's thoughtful, intimate and arresting retrospective Between Promise and Paradise prompted me to take Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida off the shelf. His complex reflections on the essence of photography resonate with Cowin's exhibition. Cowin stages intimate private moments and frames them with precision and exactitude. Blending reality with and fiction, she seeks to document the emotional connection that forms with her subjects — be it her family, herself and her twin sister, or actors for hire — as they reveal aspects of themselves in front of her lens. That these scenarios are staged and not candid is key to Cowin's explorations.
Cowin's retrospective unfolds thematically rather than chronologically. Viewers first encounter a trio of mural sized photographs that depict book spines floating in black grounds. Although they date from 2018 they were printed in 2026. The books hang from the ceiling and were chosen for their titles — Killing Time, Waiting and Lost in America — that subtly foreshadow themes to come. Adjacent color photographs from the 2025 series The Uninvited Visitor are self portraits that do not feature Cowin's face, yet suggest emotional states like anguish or love. In one close up, the back of the artist's head fills the frame, her long, curly hair blowing erratically upward. Control, or lack of it, or perhaps more specifically the desire to take control of something that is not within our power is the theme of Cowin's haunting video Another Year Closer to Death (2026). In this ten minute piece, Cowin speaks to the viewer about her fears and anxieties around aging. Not without wit and including clever inserts from the TV series The Golden Girls, Cowin muses about growing old and dying. She asks chat GPT to describe a 90 year old woman, then she hires a make up artist to depict her at that age. The title of the piece comes from a birthday card she happened upon that proclaimed "Happy Birthday! Another year closer to death." Cowin is dubious about the humor in that sentiment.
Originally published in Art and Cake, September 11, 2026
To read the full review in Art and Cake click here.