Matthew Cox In-depth analysis

Matthew Cox 

 

Detail of wrapped wrist
New embroidered X-rays
2011
Matthew Cox

Matthew Cox is a Philadelphia based artist who mixes X-ray's with embroidery. He studied at Parsons school of design in New York and in Los Angeles.
Reviews
'The best of the best'
'You don't need a critic to tell you that Matthew Cox is a terrific artist'
-Times-Picayune.

This piece of work fits into my category of 'The five senses' as a theme because it relates to the human body and have a lot of texture to it so when you are looking at it you can imagine what it would feel like.
The scale of this piece is about A3, I can tell this because of the fact he has stitched into a real X-ray, i can also tell by the size of the stitching.
He has stitched into a X-ray to carry on the image. the X-ray half of the image is realistic where as the embroided half of it is slightly abstract as it doesn't quite fit together.
The piece has been framed so that only one of the hands from the X-ray is in the frame. We can see part of the other hand but the right hand is the main subject.
The artist has made this by taking an X-ray of someones hands and then stitching into parts of the image.
I like this because it relates to one of my initial ideas and has inspired me to not just sew in the muscles on a photograph but that i could do other things to the image as well. I also like that this piece of work is recent and contemporary.
My initial reaction to his work was that it was interesting and I hadn't seen another piece like it before. I like how it is focused on only one of the hands and i like the overall composition.
This piece of work is very contrasting in the way that half of the image is flat and half it raised and textured as it has been stitched into. I this there is also a symbolic contrast between the two halves being life and death. The top half being representative of life with the greenery and the hand where as the bottom half is representative of death as its an X-ray of bones.
The hands in this piece seem to be reaching up to the branch this could possibly be symbolic of trying to hold on to life but death seems to be creeping up where the last line of stitching is only half done or half undone. I also think this piece could be pointing at the idea of 'everybody dies' but the hands in this photograph are living life to the fullest.