NEW STORIES- David Cox

David Cox constructs strikingly unusual figures, masks, reliefs and objects from wood, paper, card and other materials. Many are distillations based on archetypes associated with popular culture and music, in particular genres such as hip hop and jazz, reggae and blues. Behind the masks and the figures may be urban settings, impenetrable thickets of high rise buildings, gridlocked in traffic, seemingly built up from the reclaimed flotsam and jetsam of modern civilization. They hint at mysterious and perhaps forbidden experiences lying tantalisingly outside our reach.
Meticulously crafted, exciting to look at Cox’s vibrant works may be props for stories and performances, or representations of them, but they stand as completely autonomous objects in their own right. Inspired by an anarchic spirit mixing playfulness and profound concern in equal measure, they display a deep awareness of popular culture’s worlds of television and hip hop, skyscrapers and subways, street life and dance beat. They seem light and humorous on the surface but carry deeper and darker meanings hidden within. Modern myth and the pulse of music are everywhere .