Esther
Cohen
My practice explores the unseen connections between landscape, domestic life and the built environment, revealing the extraordinary within the familiar through drawing, photography, digital photomontage, ceramics and collage. Living and working on the south-east coast of central Scotland, I use the landscapes around me as a starting point for an experimental studio practice grounded in observation, transformation and making. Working from my own photographs and drawings, I use making as a process of discovery. Through layering, juxtaposition and repetition, I transform visual fragments into new compositions where unexpected relationships emerge. Rather than documenting the landscape, I reimagine it, allowing ordinary objects to become part of it and familiar places to shift in meaning. I am interested in how places are shaped not only by geography but also by memory, human activity and the objects that inhabit our everyday lives. By relocating commonplace domestic forms within the landscape, I explore where the boundaries between the domestic, the industrial and the natural begin to dissolve. Recurring motifs, particularly the light switch, have become key visual devices within my ongoing Electric Landscapes series. More than symbols of domestic life, they suggest unseen systems of energy, connection and transformation, introducing moments of surprise, ambiguity and recognition. Across all the media I work in, I create work that invites viewers to pause, look again and discover new narratives within landscapes they may already know.