Weapon 3
Richard Cox
- 1988
- Offset Lithograph;Silk Screen
- Image/sheet: 21.5 x 30"
- 40 prints in this edition
About the Print
From the Artist
One of the most difficult issues to assimilate, and one which really breaks the service of my work, is politics. Like so many of my friends, I experienced genuine anger, frustration and a sense of outrage to which I can find no effective articulation. The show covers the period of 1979 through ’94. Dominated by a political agenda diametrically opposed to everything I cared about. Around me I see every institution under direct attack—the NHS, education, the Arts, Social Services, immigration, the law, the coal industry (and there are others). All under the hammer of a political orthodoxy that seems to understand only self-interest, short-termism, political expediency and market forces.
My own work does not engage with these issues directly despite my strong feelings, but does not mean that they do not impinge upon the work in some subtle way. The Weapon Series makes a direct reference to my views on whaling, especially by the Norwegians and the Japanese. At the same time, however, I acknowledge my work owes much to the extraordinary quality of space and silence that typifies traditional Japanese architecture. The vertical painted panels (screens) bisected by a wooden bar/Harpoon could refer to an aspect of Japanese culture that I reject. A very positive experience that I fully expect to have an impact on my work has been an incredibly interesting trip to Rajasthan, although the process may take some time to emerge.
—Excerpt from Brandywine Workshop and Archives records: “Richard Cox: Archive and Work in Series 1979–1994” by National Museum of Wales, 1994 (exhibition catalog)
Richard Cox
English
March 21, 1946 in Buckinghamshire, England
About the Artist
Richard Cox studied fine art in Southend, Newport, Birmingham, and London, UK. He moved to Wales in 1975, continuing his art practice and teaching at the University of Wolverhampton (formerly Wolverhampton Polytechnic); Royal College of Art, London; Delhi College of Art, India; and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; and working as a visual-arts organizer.
From 1983 to 1998 Cox was Visual Arts Officer at SEWAA and directed the artist-in-residence and international exchange programs of the Arts Council of Wales. He has been an artist-in-residence at Kunstakademiett i Trondheim, Norway; Bemis Centre for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, University of Hijiyama, Hiroshima, Japan; Delhi College of Art, Delhi; and Rajasthan School of Art, Jaipur, India.
In the late 1980s Cox visited Philadelphia regularly and collaborated with Allan Edmunds, Founder and Executive Director of Brandywine Workshop and Archives, to organize the Wales/Philadelphia Visual Artists Exchange from 1987 to 1992. During these visits he editioned four prints at BWA working with Bob Franklin, the BWA’s acclaimed printmaking technician.
Since 1993 Cox has worked with artists in India and toured his exhibition Subterranean Architecture: Stepwells in Western India between 2008 and 2018 to 17 galleries in India, the UK, and United States, starting with Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre, Cwmbran Centre, Wales, in 2008; Tamarind Art Gallery, New York City, in 2010; and Montclair State University, NJ, in 2012.
His work is in some 30 public collections in the UK and internationally, including the National Museum and Galleries of Wales, Cardiff; The State Museum at Majdanek, Lublin, Poland; Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur, India; British Council New Delhi, India; Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Philadelphia; Newport Museum and Art Gallery, Wales.
Cox’s work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Howard Gardens Gallery, Cardiff, Wales; Cardiff School of Art & Design, Wales; Aberystwyth University School of Art, Wales; Art Central Gallery, Barry, Wales; and Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre, Wales. He was senior lecturer and gallery director at Cardiff School of Art and Design, Wales, from 2004 to 2013. Cox lives in Cardiff, Wales.
—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records
Curriculum Connections
Suggested Topics for Algebra I and Geometry
Algebra I:
The resources provided can be used early on in an Algebra class to help students think in multiple dimen- sions. The artworks can be used to demonstrate illusions intended as a design element or to help students imagine space constructed or deconstructed from forms or shapes within a space. The ability to visualize concepts through art can make advanced math more accessible to students early on.
Geometry:
Some may want to use images in the Artura.org library to explore more complex uses of advanced math to create the illusions of space and solve spatial dynamic issues for three-dimensional works such as stand-alone sculpture and site-specific, public artworks. The laying of bricks or ceramic tiles is a skilled craft that can involve creativity and innovation in bricks or tiles are set and many available options in color, design, and texture are used. Sculptors such as Melvin Edwards, Richard Hunt, and John T. Scott have consistently used higher math concepts in the creation of large scale, space-defining public art.
Questions to Consider
- What are the different considerations between symmetry and asymmetry in relation to designing a structure or composing a work of art?
- What roles can rhythm, repetition, pattern, proportion, and scale play in an architect’s design and construction process? What roles can they plan in making a work of art?
- Other than the design of buildings, where else does one observe the use of the right angle in a creative way and for what purposes?