Nadia Lee Cohen (born 15 November 1992)[1] is a British artist, photographer, filmmaker, and model.[2][3] She works inside popular culture, citing inspiration from cinema, commercials, and consumerism, which then re-enters the mass media in the form of magazine covers, music videos and Instagram posts.[4][5]
Lee Cohen's parents helped her build sets in their garage for her earliest film and photographic projects while she attended the London College of Fashion, where she graudated with BA (Hons) in fashion styling and photography and MA in fashion photography.[8][9][10] In 2012, she won the Taylor Wessing prize at the National Portrait Gallery.[1] She relocated to Los Angeles in search of the Hollywood scenery that inspired her, only to find the real Hollywood Boulevard was one of trashy stores and broken dreams.[11][12] This became her new source of inspiration for her project, Women, that would be published six years later. Her photographs and films are character-driven visions of saturated and surreal dreamscapes that capture the manifest pleasures and visceral terrors of the urban environment.[13][10]
In 2020, Lee Cohen published her first book, Women, with IDEA; a major monograph six years in the making; the book featured 100 previously unseen portraits.
Lee Cohen's second book, Hello My Name Is, was published by IDEA in December 2021. It saw Lee Cohen physically manifest herself into 33 characters (both female and male) imagined from 33 found name badges.[20] Alongside each portrait is a still-life of found objects associated with each persona.[21]
In May 2022, Lee Cohen opened her first solo art exhibition in the United States at Jeffrey Deitch gallery in Los Angeles.[23] The gallery presented a thematic showcase of Cohen's photographic works from her monographs (Women and HELLO, My Name Is), in addition to an immersive installation featuring video works and life-like sculptures.
In 2019, Lee Cohen was cast as Danny Trejo’s girlfriend in the movie Black Licorice. In 2021, she was selected by Couture house of Schiaparelli to be the face of their new campaign,[24] with Vogue magazine donning Nadia ‘The Schiaparelli muse we’re all obsessed with’.[25]
Lee Cohen was previously featured as a model for Maison Margiela,[26] appeared in Calvin Klein's campaign, and walked for Rihanna's Savage X Fenty Show.[27][28] In 2021, she was the cover of C41 magazine, Rollacoaster Magazine and Numéro.
