CINEMATIC EILEEN COWIN
Between Panic And Paradise
Looking at Eileen Cowin, you wouldn’t guess that the artist is on her way to turning 80. It’s not because she appears particularly young, although she does in some ways, her naturally brown hair topped by purple dye, a single shock of silver sitting atop her crown. There’s a wry youthfulness in the way she protests, taking to Instagram with plain and serious signs reading, “A bad time for science and everything else,” or “America is under attack. Pay attention!!”
An artist and an activist, whichever comes first, Cowin fully grasps the cold realism of the human struggle. While the style of her works vary throughout time, there is always a distinct darkness, both visually and figuratively, throughout her art. Through heavy contrasts, pigmented blacks, and at times, a touch of humor, she explores themes of fear, aging, and the fickle nature of personal truths.
Now, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents Between Panic and Paradise, Cowin’s first major museum retrospective which covers five decades of photographic work from 1967 onwards, as well as Cowin’s foray into videography in the 90s. In sections, Cowin’s oeuvre is spotlighted in all of its cinematic, emotionally charged, and occasionally trepidatious facets — some underlying storyline always being unraveled and delivered.
In one massive 2026 ‘self-portrait’ that delineates from her standard heaviness, aptly titled Something Out of the Ordinary, Cowin displays more than 250 images of mundane and ordinary personal items — a pair of gloves, crumpled paper, a photo booth print, a set of keys, a handwritten note. It’s not a collage. It’s simply a group of everyday objects laid against white backgrounds. So simple and commonplace in its presentation, it offers a certain view of the artist that somehow obscures her further.
Eileen Cowin: Between Panic and Paradise runs until January 3, 2027. For more information, visit the LACMA website here.