Chris Cox: "Being in Nature"
Muse Art Gallery
52 N 2nd St.
Philadelphia
Feb. 16, 2025
Lace up your shoes. We're going for a walk.
Chris Cox's exhibit, "Being in Nature," is like a speed-run mental health walk for visitors to Muse Art Gallery. The solo show catalogues Cox's impressions of anonymous undergrowth, inspired by long hikes the artist started taking during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Our stroll through Cox's work starts in the grassy weeds of a layered oil painting. Murky lines establish a dark depth of field that carry us from the roots of summer reeds to the chartreuse light that reflects off their sun-soaked stems. We're transported into jungle of color that carries a mood of abundance; whatever greenery we're squaring off with is lush with energy.
Cox crafts each image by coating canvases in sheaths of color before using a carving tool to whittle lines through the skins of pigment. The process sounds akin to ripping one's way through bramble with a machete until a clearing is uncovered — or, in Cox's case, until an environmental essence is unveiled.
The paintings read as chaotic tracks through an unknown time period. We could be observing landscapes changed by season, time of day, or location. Though wood as medium is the central focus of the show, the chiseled strokes resemble not only bare trees and bark but blades of grass; wild shrubs; wispy straws; forests of seaweed. Wherever we're walking — on land or under water, through a meadow or a neighbor's yard — is up to us to imagine, not on Cox to convey.
The exhibit echoes the effect of Claude Monet's haystacks; in the late 19th century, the impressionist churned out portraits of the changing light on lonely hay bails, holding the subject steady in order to shed his revolutionary lens of transient light onto a banal agricultural rite. Cox, on the other hand, holds no variables constant other than her physical technique, showcasing the lasting mystery of our environments rather than their science.
Living through the era of information means leading an overloaded existence. Our attention is more an object of corporate competition than a pathway of or to free will. Cox's artwork doesn't take a stance on where we should place our gaze, but rather encourages us to develop our own ways of seeing. Some might call it a waste of time to stare into the starkness of winter brush, but looking at something other than a screen is rapidly becoming an anarchic act of resistance.
It's also the ironic last resort for the sickly American psyche. Amid pandemics, remote work and poverty wages, global crises and environmental catastrophes, the mental health walk has emerged as the "first-world" solution to the anxiety and depression catalyzed by man-made hubris. With a quarter of Americans functionally unemployed and far more living in social isolation, a walk around the block (AKA the "stupid mental health walk" trend on social media) is one of few reprieves that most individuals can still afford — though suburban sprawl and inner city pavement are threats to the nourishing effects of forest bathing.
While Cox's paintings cost thousands a piece, a visit to the gallery hanging them is fortunately still free. A walk in the woods, at least in Philly, is just a fare jump away.
