Artists: A - H: Matthew Cox

This new body of work explores the persistent presence of the foundational elements that underlie the seemingly idyllic. Whatever the experience or item, we can be sure that there are dark structures and ideas that lurk beneath constantly pressing to present themselves.

Can light exist without darkness, white without black, comfort without the knowledge of fear? Can plant life take root without decay, animals evolve without devouring for survival, love without the knowledge of loneliness?

The Underpinnings of Paradise, new work 2011, begins an exploration of this theme. Two different media, paintings and embroidered x-rays supply the vehicle. Each piece in both groups employs an area of dark imagery that presses its necessity onto a highly-colored idyllic setting. In the oils, gargoyles, recalling prehistoric creatures with armor and horns, spray water toward female bathers lathered in bubbles.

The second work is a group of hand-embroidered x-rays. Here, the dark underpinning is embodied by the bone that lies beneath the fluff of an embroidered area of tapestry. The stark clash of materials, color and non-color and redefinition of the expected intention of the materials illuminates this idea of necessary opposites that seems to exist in all facets of life as we know it.

Matthew Cox was educated at Parsons School of Design in New York and Los Angeles. He exhibited nationally in Chicago, New York, Miami, California, Tennessee and New Orleans. His work is in the permanent collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art; the Georgetown College Art Gallery, Progressive Insurance, and more. He was awarded a Louisiana Division of the Arts Fellowship in 2003 and the prestigious Pew Charitable Trusts Fellowship in the Arts (painting) in 2008.