In the land of the young artiste, where the same H&M scarves and lensless Ray-Bans stretch for miles, Barnard freshman and emerging art star Allison Cohen is one of the few who can not be accused of conformity.  When I fed her with the cliched line, "So Allison, name one of the artists who had served as a primary inspiration for you," I deserved a "Jackson Pollock" or "Picasso, the blue period" (recently described to me as the default choice for angsty teens). Allison, however, calm, cool, and cited Chris Ofili, a little known British painter whose artwork references his Nigerian heritage.

She spoke of how he used elephant dung to paint pictures of the Madonna, simultaneously creating a cultural commentary and playing upon the religious significance of  elephant dung in Zimbambwe. Cohen then explained how she replicated this process at home with her pet African Gray Parrot. She painted a canvas a tone that would emphasize the white urates, allow nature to take its course, and then fix the canvas with a gel medium.  Then, like Offili, she superimposed a picture on these deposits, matching the natural tonal values of the excrement to the paint. She got some mixed responses from an obviously close-minded audience, "Most people upon seeing the bird poop pieces would be like 'Oh that's so pretty! It looks like Jackson Pollock, how'd you do that?' And I'd be like, 'It's poop,' and they'd be like 'Ew.'" She laughed mischievously but then suddenly made the transition from delighted imp to introspective academic announcing, "It was interesting to see the reaction produced by the visual aspect of the painting and then the reaction produced by the medium that was used to make it."As the work of all great artists was reviled before it was accepted, I believe that we can expect only remarkable things from Ms. Cohen. Who knows,  between her and Offili's efforts, they may have already set the precedent for the next emerging art form.

FOR MORE, VISIT: http://allisongallery.com