Spectral Brotherhood at Last Light

Adrian Cox is a painter living and working in Los Angeles, California. Cox attended the University of Georgia for his undergraduate studies, and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with honors in 2010. He obtained his Master of Fine Arts degree from Washington University in Saint Louis in 2012.

Artist Statement:
My work forms the ongoing mythology of the Border Creatures, a race of hybrid beings that live in the verdant wilderness of the Borderlands. The Border Creatures exist in symbiotic harmony with the natural world, but are frequently antagonized by the Specters, beings of pure energy that casually burn the landscape that they walk upon. When these spirits first appeared, the destruction that they brought to the lush ecosystem of the Borderlands drove the creatures into hiding, and forced them to conceal their hybrid and non-binary nature in order to survive. In my recent solo exhibition, Terra Incognita, I chronicled the heroic journey of Healer, the leader and savior of the Border Creatures. By donning the Fatherdress, a supernatural garment that allowed Healer to become both mother and father to the creatures, the Specters were transformed, and Healer's people saved. However, there are still Specters that haunt the darkest corners of the Borderlands, and the Spectral Witnesses that beheld Healer's transfiguration still wander the forest.

In this personal mythology, I seek to raise questions that are fundamental to a contemporary human experience. These narratives speak to the inextricable ties between individual human identity and our cultural understanding of Nature. My paintings also challenge how we define the Monstrous and the Other, and propose a reconsideration of the categories of the natural and the transgressive. These mythic fictions suggest that there is no "pure" way to exist in the world. In the Borderlands, qualities that might be misunderstood as grotesque or monstrous are synonymous with beauty. Ultimately, these paintings present an exaltation of fluid identities, and imagines a place where the language of difference breaks down.