© 2019
Deron Cohen, a San Diego native, has shown his paintings extensively throughout San Diego. Most recently, he has been in shows at the Encinitas Public Library, Project X Gallery, The Museum of the Living Artist, The San Diego Art Department, Sanctuary Gallery, Limbo Fine Arts, and Sushi Gallery. Deron has just started to show in other cities, most recently at the Rialto Theater in Corpus Christi, Texas and The Nico Gallery in Seattle, Washington.
Deron helped found Paint Night Group, a group of artists originating in San Diego that have been collaborating together for the past 15+ years. They have shown as a group all over San Diego and in 2006 had a show at Gallery 4 in Amsterdam. Paint Night Group recently showed at the 2009 Beyond the Borders International Contemporary Art Fair in San Diego and collaborated on a mural at San Diego Art Fair 2014.
Along with his painting career, Deron has created magazine illustrations, done graphic design work, and taught others how to express themselves creatively through art. He has been creating curricula for children’s art programs and teaching them most recently through non-profit arts organization Arts for Learning San Diego. Deron has also been teaching adults how to paint for the past 15 years with different companies and studios in San Diego as well as through his own workshops and private classes both in person locally and from around the world via webcam online. Deron received a Bachelor in Fine Art from UCLA in 1994.
"I have loved to draw and make art since I was very young. I seemed to have an aptitude for it; my friends asked me to make drawings for them and my parents were always supportive of me pursuing art. No one ever said it would be easy, but I had enough confidence to try to make a career out of what I love. It still continues to be a struggle, but I have never regretted my decision.
I believe that viewing and especially making art is a healing act. In a world with so much destruction and sickness, we are able to heal ourselves and others through the act of creation. At the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, I have worked with injured military personnel who suffer from PTSD and other injuries. I have worked with the autistic community. I have worked with a quadriplegic mouthpainter. Their lives have all benefitted from making art and I have watched them heal a little bit because of it. Their physical wounds may not ever heal, but their psychic wounds do. At the very least, I hope my paintings and my teaching will bring people into the Now of the moment instead of the default mode of day-to-day life. My greatest hope is that my work will inspire others and maybe even heal the world in some small way.
I paint stories that I make up as I go along. Love, War, Peace, Spirit, Nature, Birth, Life, Death, the Mind and the Universe grapple with each other in a vivid explosion of color. Imagination runs wild and is made real in these images. Imagination is an infinite vessel filled with all our knowledge and everything else that will ever be. The images I create are designed to find a crack in your consciousness so they can seep into your mind and spark your imagination."
© 2019