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Featured Artists

Cedric Michael Cox
Soul within Structure

When did you first realize you wanted to become an artist?
Cedric Michael Cox:  I first became interested in art as a child. Like most children new to the world around them, I had the passion to put my interpretation of the world on paper. As a youngster, I was inspired by watching my father sketching at the dinner table before and after supper.  I would carefully watch how he would start and finish a composition. Our home was filled with poster prints of Van Gogh and Alberto Giacometti.  In elementary school I was recognized for my artistic ability, and art served as a way for me to meet new people who I never would have made contact with.  I soon wanted to become an artist.

What steps did you take to become an artist?
CMC:  Approaching college, the only field of interest that inspired me was the visual arts. When I attended The University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture Art and Planning, 'I was among the students celebrated for their secondary school artistic talent.’  I was unsure where I would fit in but I did. My experience at DAAP was very rewarding. I had the privilege of studying under professors Terrance Corbin, Frank Herrmann and Wayne Enstice. While attending the University, I was awarded a fellowship to study at the prestigious Glasgow School of Art in Scotland.  After graduation, I began exhibiting my work around the city in group and solo exhibitions.

What artists have influenced your work?
CMC:  As my work evolved, so have my influences.  In primary and secondary school, my work rendered the same level of intensity with respect to geometric quality. In college, I began studying artists such as Franz Marc and Fernand Leger, for the depth their work displayed.  Initially, I was heavily influenced by Italian futurists like Umberto Boccioni and Gino, I am presently studying artists such as Paul Klee, Wosene Worke Kosrof and John Biggers.

What is your favorite media and technique?
CMC:  Painting and drawing are my favorite mediums to work with.  I use collage as a way to quickly compose compositions and color.

Your work often has an architectural quality to it, why is that?
CMC:  My work is influenced by my immediate surroundings surroundings. The neighborhood of Over- the Rhine is my muse and also lends inspiration to my use of geometrical fragmented forms.

Tell me a little bit about your teaching experience.
CMC:  Throughout my career I have executed art educational projects at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Cincinnati Art Museum, the Weston Gallery at the Aronoff Center for the Arts, the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center, Visionaries and Voices, ArtWorks, and the Contemporary Arts Center.

I have also visited public and private schools as a guest artist sharing with students my work and experience as a visual artist.  In 2006, I designed and conducted an art educational program called Art Shapes Us.  Art Shapes Us is a program that brings together high school and middle school students from various educational institutions and backgrounds for a 6 to 8 week art course. Art Shapes Us will return to the Weston with a theme based on my new paintings that will be exhibited in September for their 2010/2011 season.

I believe if you are passionate about what you do, you will want to share your passion with others. This idea has led me to become involved in art educational projects, encouraging others to follow there dreams and aspirations whether in be art related or not. My continuous mission as an emerging visual artist is to create work that expands my interests, and also to find innovative ways of attracting new and inspired audiences to my work and to the arts in general. In order for the arts to thrive in our society, it is vital for the arts community to provide diverse educational programming that will allow art appreciation to flourish.

What inspired your exhibition "Soul within  Structure?"  
CMC:  The work in this exhibition is inspired by my interest in the urban cityscape. The architecture of Over-The-Rhine always inspired me but it wasn’t until I moved to OTR in 2000 that the city became my still life.  The urban environment fueled by my personal aesthetic for the fragmentation of form and the city quickly became my subject.  The vivid ruins of OTR are my muse.  The quick gesture graffiti tags against the brick patterns on walls is a vision that repeats in my mind when I look up at the tallest buildings and in the cracks in the ground below my feet.

Why did you choose the title “Soul with a Structure?”
CMC:  The title “Soul within Structure”, speaks to my fascination with the urban cityscape and the pulsating rhythm that I feel when my eyes travel as a walk down the streets in my neighborhood of Over- The Rhine.  The grid like structures that embody my compositions is the playground in which forms shift in and out of the cubic arena. This movement is reflective of music. My work is a spiritual testimony to my experience living in the inner city and the music and cityscape that subconsciously arouse my senses as I walk down the street to my studio, eager to create the visual rhythms that are in my stride.