These Fleshy, Flowery Mutants Are Living Their Best Lives

Georgia-based artist Adrian Cox elegantly renders his bulbous humanoid creatures in classic painterly style with an Impressionistic understanding of light. The painter’s characters are frequently depicted without faces, their emotions and expressions relegated to body language. His newest show, Sensory Garden, exhibits at beinArt gallery in Melbourne.

Cox is confident in his brushstrokes when forming mythic environments and elaborate characters. His assuredness in painting came from studying amongst a knowledgeable group of painters and professors within his interdisciplinary program, as well working in a collaborative environment, energized by like-minded peers. In an interview with his current gallery, beinArt, the artist shares: “My undergraduate education was definitely focused on technique and the study of art history, while my graduate degree was more specifically geared towards understanding the conceptual context of an artistic practice. I hear a lot of artists complain about the lack of structure and classical training in art schools these days, and while I have to admit that I earned much of my technical knowledge the hard way, I truly believe that my education shaped my trajectory.

Hide and Seek

Cox, who grew up with a transgender father, weaves a tone of empathy and tolerance through the indiscernible identities of his subjects. The artist does not consider his characters androgynous, though perhaps “exhibiting characteristics that might be seen as both male and female.”

He explains further, “I’ve always been particularly sensitive to how I portray gender in my work, and I think on a personal level that this might have something to do with growing up with two mothers. Because of my life and my background, it’s always seemed very natural to me for gender roles to be… even interchangeable. […] I’ve allowed this perspective to inform how I depict the Border Creatures. I think of them as manifesting the characteristics of a particular gender without ever settling comfortably into a fixed state.

Take a look at the latest series of paintings from Cox, below:

Glow Gardener with Nocturne

Forging the Path

Big Thinker with Reflections on Natural Phenomena

Painter in the Wind

Snake Gardener with Orrey

Sensory Garden exhibits at beinArt gallery until June 25. Learn more about the show and art space here.

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