ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is a continuous exploration of the power of color through the use of oils and acrylics on large canvases. I utilize the pure interaction of colors to create energy, emotion, and powerful imagery. My personal symbolism is heavily bent towards nature: fruit, flowers, foliage and the figure. I want a viewer to recognize and experience the quality of the paint itself as well as the image it is presenting.

I apply the paint quickly over a few sessions with broad strokes and purposeful drips and splashes. I enjoy adding detail through scratching, much the same way that Matisse built detail and patterns into his paintings through scratching. My painting style is also influenced by artists Vincent Van Gogh, Alice Neel, Xenia Hausner, Sheep Jones and many other contemporaries.

I come from a family of artists. My mother taught oil painting in our house when I was a child. I was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, where I earned my BFA in painting from Towson University. In 2005 I moved to New Orleans to open an art gallery, MOXY Studios, with my partner Mare McCall. The gallery and studio was an exciting opportunity to gather and represent a group of fascinating emerging artists. However, about a year and half after hurricane Katrina we closed the gallery due to poor economic times in the New Orleans area. I now reside in Alexandria, VA just outside Washington, D.C. and exhibit most often at the Torpedo Factory and various locations in Baltimore.

Joan Asplen Cox