"Sapphic Gaze" presents a compelling series of vibrant, life-size portraits that delve into the intimate lives of women-loving women. Drawing from her 23-year relationship and the experiences of lesbian couples in her community, Joan Cox crafts visual narratives that champion intense, celebratory, and nuanced relationships. By reimagining historical art compositions with personal narratives and lush, symbolic imagery, Joan challenges the historical absence of lesbian representation in Western art. Her paintings are a canvas of affirmation, celebrating the dynamic and complex intimacies between women, which have long been overlooked or taboo. Through this exhibition, Joan showcases the beauty and complexity of sapphic love and aims to affirm these relationships, recognizing them for their intrinsic value and significant place in contemporary society.
These installations of light, shadow and paint create haunting images of children in order to evoke emotional responses on a gut level. Delicate constructions attempt to capture the impermanence of childhood and children as a whole. I am creating a three-dimensional space in which the viewer can experience a delicate print of a childhood object like a swing, a stroller or a wagon on the wall. Hanging several feet in front of the prints (suspended by filament from the ceiling) are empty gold-gilt traditional frames, just floating in mid-air — seemingly weightless — attempting to frame the image of the paper on the wall...but as the viewer moves around the piece, the frame no longer visually contains the image. In between the empty frame and the paper on the wall hangs a sheet of clear Mylar with an image of an infant or toddler painted in soft white and pink tones—barely visible at first sight and again suspended in mid-air with an ethereal floating quality. A spotlight directed at each work casts a strong shadow of the painted infant/toddler onto the image of each stroller or swing — creating a presence and an absence all at once.
