2020
2019
2013
2006
2006
2001
Frauenhaus, Catalyst Contemporary, Baltimore, MD
Tomboy, Function Gallery, Baltimore, MD
Taboo, Silber Art Gallery, Goucher College, Baltimore, MD
Burgeoning Blooms, MOXY Studios, New Orleans
Recent Work, Assunta Fox Gallery, Santa Ana, California
Fire I Can Hold, Maryland Federation of Art City Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland

JOAN COX

Joan Cox, The Lovers (after Schiele), Watercolor monotype on drawing paper, 2013, 54 x 40 inches
JOAN COX

BIOGRAPHY
Lives and works in Baltimore, MD.
1969
BFA Towson University, Towson, MD,
MFA Massachusetts College of Art’, Provincetown, MA
Resides
Education
Born
Joan Cox paints large-scale images of dynamic, complex, sensual, sexual, and loving relationships between women—normalizing them. Images of lesbian couples in both painting and photography have been lacking, hidden, or explained as erotic material for the male gaze. Whereas woman have often been portrayed in passive positions exclusively for men, Cox’s women engage with each other—not the male viewer—celebrating the female gaze. Working in large-scale figurative painting, Cox adheres to the notion that representation matters. Often one of the figures is androgynous, as if Cox is challenging viewers to recognize that these are lesbians, and not different-sex couples. While her subjects are most often friends and family, and even sometimes herself, the figures are often in settings that nod to art-historical precedents to supply the canon with images of lesbian love that have been heretofore missing. Because the lesbian perspective has been denied for so long in painting, Cox’s socially relevant works open up that dialogue through a complex investigation of cultural norms, sexual identities, and body politics.
SELECTED WORKS
PUBLICATIONS
EXHIBITIONS
2018
2017
2016
2014
2013
2012
2009
2008
2007
2006
Art of Pride, Dooby’s, Baltimore, MD
Portraits of Us, Montpelier Arts Center, Laurel, MD
WomensFEST Art & Photography Exhibit, CAMP, Rehoboth, DE
GUTSY: Taking the Fear Factor Out of Feminism, Gallery CA, Baltimore, MD
MFAWC: Off the Grid II, Arnheim Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA
Women in Figuration, Kunstraum 65b, Feldkirch, Austria
On Loan: Formality, Area 405, Juror Cara Ober, Baltimore, MD
MFAWC: Off the Grid, Arnheim Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA
SommerAkademie Vernissage, Traunkirchen, Austria
Members’ Juried Exhibit, Torpedo Factory Art Center, Alexandria, VA
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
SOLO EXHIBITIONS