"My work explores the emotional effects of color and space-how atmosphere, gesture, and scale can quietly trigger memory, tension, or release. I'm drawn to the spaces in between: interior and exterior, seen and felt, containment and freedom.
Working in oil, Flashe, printmaking, and collage, I move intuitively between mediums to capture moments that live just beneath the surface of perception. My process begins with an emotional or spatial impression, often rooted in memory or place, and evolves through layering, erasure, and reconstruction.
Influenced by the traditions of both abstraction and figuration, I aim to create images that resonate emotionally before they resolve intellectually-inviting the viewer into a shared space of reflection and sensation, where form dissolves into feeling and feeling, in turn, becomes form."
Bobbye Cochran is a Chicago-based artist whose work moves between painting, printmaking, and collage to explore the emotional resonance of color, space, and gesture. Her paintings reference both nature and figuration, blending abstraction with subtle allusions to place, memory, and the human form. Rooted in intuition and shaped by a deep sensitivity to atmosphere, her process invites quiet, layered experiences that draw viewers in-fostering connection, visual attraction, or moments of introspective pause.
Before dedicating herself fully to fine art, Cochran led a nationally recognized career as an illustrator and graphic designer. Named "National Illustrator of the Year" by Adweek and included among "Chicago's 27 Designers," her clients included American Express, United Airlines, and the Metropolitan Opera of New York. Her 20 x 60-foot mural at 900 North Michigan Avenue, home to the Four Seasons Hotel, was a Chicago landmark for over 30 years.
Cochran holds a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and maintains an active studio practice at Mana Contemporary in Chicago, where she continues to develop her multidisciplinary work and create experiences that invite reflection, evoke memory, and leave a lasting impression.