Allen Cox

Cox has been showing his work professionally since 1982 and holds an MFA in painting from the University of Oregon, where he studied with the highly regarded Pacific Northwest abstract painter, Frank Okada. Cox worked as a field archaeologist and scientific illustrator for over 10 years in Oregon, experiences which profoundly influence his practice.

In many ways, Cox’s images are a commentary on contemporary life, reflecting on a collective desire to both connect with the natural world and negotiate the constructed world around us. They work to reveal the unseen architecture that organizes our everyday lives. Circles and other geometric shapes are fundamental building blocks of image making. Geometric forms and patterns have a long history across cultures, decorating and informing the prehistory, technology and architecture of civilization- caves, pottery, agriculture, weapons and monumental structures. These more precise forms mingle with the organic in Cox’s compositions, resulting in shapes that are recognizable in a basic way but are also part of an abstracted vocabulary of form, texture and dynamic movement. Cox’s paintings are densely textured, with multiple layers of paint built up over time, the evidence of constant revision and reworking. The final surface– scratched, scraped, altered and worn– presents its own history of change, growth and survival. An archaeology of paint.