B SHAWN COX

Available Works

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

B Shawn Cox is a mixed media artist currently living and working in Austin, Texas. Born in Lubbock, Texas with ranching roots in the sand dunes of Monahans, Texas, his work is vibrant, graphic and playful. Although he escaped the small-town ranching life to explore big city professional dreams, his western foundation remains a stronghold in his work.

His current body of work explores layered compositions of materials, pattern, color and texture as well as narratives from personal and collective social mythology linked to iconographic figurative stereotypes. He has degrees in Architecture and Law but has maintained and developed an evolving art practice for over 30 years.

He has been exhibited and collected throughout the United States in both private and corporate collections. You can still see his Austin Art Boards winning billboard from time to time around Austin. 

Artist Statement

B Shawn Cox creates to the calm light of pop philosophy utilizing borrowed fragments of the written word and iconography from our collective social mythology. The genesis for a work is a “loaded pixel” of a lyric, quote, platitude or an aphorism that might make one think, “That’s it. That’s me. That’s my philosophy for life!”... at least for a moment in time or in his case, for a particular piece or series of works. Repurposing nostalgic icons, in lyrical, playful, layered compositions affords the viewer a catalyst for internal or external dialogues. The work utilizes “wild west” cowboy mystique and the myth of manifest destiny and creates furtile ground and reflective commentary on my personal and Texas’ collective social mythology by repurposing and graphically re-evaluating iconographic figurative stereotypes. Intertwining predetermined feminine and masculine elements, floral and hard graphic elements as well as unexpected colors and patterns affords the viewer an opportunity to engage on a wide variety of levels. Each Cowboy is both a graphic layered compositional experiment and a reflective commentary on social mythology repurposing this iconographic figurative stereotype. Each of the Cowboy pieces are created by stretching fabric over a stretcher frame, treating the fabric with matte medium, applying a geometric pattern and then incorporating a vintage cowboy portrait.