Millennials Series – Helen Werner Cox

Hayden Reclining. Oil on canvas, 2019. 46″ x 60″

Jason in the Mirror. Oil on canvas, 2019. 48″ x 48″

Jasen wanted to explore his masculine and feminine selves in our collaborative painting. Originally he wanted to make a costume that was literally half male and half female, but that never materialized. So we decided to use a mirror image and we literally started with a mirror. However, the mirror was too small and had to be moved around; we ended up creating two separate poses and merging them into one image, a technique I had used in a couple of earlier works.

The Cello. Tempera and pastel on paper, 2019. 27 x 51″.

Pinwheel. Oil on canvas, 2019. 36 x 46″.

Darwin and Mary. Oil drawing on paper, 2019. 50 x 34″.

Emily in the Chair. Oil on paper, 2018. 22 x 18″.

Emily Dreaming. Oil on canvas, 2018. 30 x 48″.

The Blue Kimono. Inktense, watercolor, tempera, 2018. 32 x 48″.

Double Identity. Tempera and pastel on paper, 2018. 29 x 21″.

Cynthia Doubles. Oil on canvas, 2018. 48 x 36″.

Interpretations: The Mandarin Dress. Oil on canvas, 2018. 48 x 36″.

In this series, Interpretations, Darwin’s selfies offered a unique opportunity to give a stronger voice to his ideas in the context of the project, and to develop images I would not have imagined.

I asked to appropriate his self-portraits as the basis for observational drawings, without explanations, thereby creating multiple layers of meaning. The result is a triptych, Interpretations, that expresses different aspects of his identity, filtered through another’s eyes. Darwin’s identification with the late 1800’s coincides with my love for the art of the fin de siècle and early twentieth century, but the directness of his approach and his calm acceptance of himself are distinctly contemporary.