Manok Cohen

Manok Cohen is an artist living in The Sea Ranch and Healdsburg California.  Born in Laos to a Vietnamese mother and a French father, she was raised in Normandy France after the outbreak of the Vietnam War. 

Manok began drawing and painting at a young age.  In the late 70’s she spent a decade in the South of France weaving tapestries in a small mountain village above Menton. She then moved to Paris to work for the fashion house Kenzo where she discovered the language of color and began painting on a larger scale.  In the early 90’s the natural beauty and range of landscape Manok found in Northern California called her to live and paint in Sonoma County.

She works with acrylics and mixed media on wood panels that allow her to apply textures, multiple layers of paint, scraping and wiping to expose the undercoats. Her process is animate and intuitive as she develops scenes that are colorful with organic form, line and symbols the viewer can interpret into their own personal narrative. 

Manok’s new interest in wire sculptures was influenced by the work of Ruth Asawa.  She drew upon her early weaving experience to experiment with wire, also developing a technique using crochet to create large scale wire sculptures with flowing organic forms.