More than a dozen paintings and prints are now on display in a one-person exhibit at the Northern Door Y Program Center in Fish Creek, Wisconsin.
Baileys Harbor painter, writer and former corporate management consultant, Myrna Leigh Cohn discovered the artistic and creative half of her brain later in life. More than a dozen years ago, after a successful career as a top-flight management consultant, she picked up a brush and dipped it into oils. From that point on, she began a personal and a spiritual quest to understand and apply right and left-brained theory in her daily life.
“In the scheme of the world, our individual lives are fragile and fleeting,” says Myrna Leigh. “For what is left of mine, I will continue to be a woman artist whose soul is revealed in my art.”
Myrna began exploring cautiously as a representational artist, painting mostly landscapes and a few portraits. As her conviction and comprehension of the internal dynamics of being an artist came together, she began a process of daring to take risks on canvas. Her paintings often began as landscapes and evolved into an abstract expression of her emotions.
Now, she paints aggressively, often attacking a blank canvas with strong colors applied with a collection of palette knives. The surfaces are sometimes quite tactile and energetic.
“My paintings are contemporary reflections of an evolving journey through a typical life,” says Myrna Leigh, “an equal mix of beauty, joy and love, challenged by frustration, deprivation, fear and sorrow.”
The Northern Door Y is now honoring that commitment to art with a dedicated show of her paintings and prints that one Y staffer exclaimed, “…is one of the most professional and beautiful shows we have ever presented.” The exhibit will run through mid-March.
Find her socially at: facebook.com/MyrnaLeighCohn and visit her Website at MyrnaCohn.com.
