Rachel Cox
Shiny Ghost
In this project I have documented the final years of my Grandmother’s life as she was suffering from a degenerative brain disease. The images were made during moments of conversation, gesture, and experiences of death. The variety of photographic approaches towards the subjects are representative of a frantic need to record all aspects of my knowledge of her (whether performative or candid) in a hopes that these moments could be pieced together again, attempting to construct a more accurate portrait of how I would remember her. My Grandmother and I had a tumultuous relationship, never thoroughly understood, and missed connections of tastes and values flourished throughout our entire lives. Looking back on this project, the photographs reveal a deeper language we had been sharing for years, constituted of mutual vulnerability and trust, acted upon even in death.
Bio
Rachel Cox has shown work recently at Museo de los Artes in Mexico City, Baijia Art Museum in Nanjing, China, The Musee del’Elysee in Switzerland, Museo Amparo in Mexico, and at PHOTO London 2016. Cox has shown work nationally at the Houston Center for Photography, The Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, and the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center.
In 2016 Cox’s project Shiny Ghost was awarded 1st place by Lensculture Magazine for their International Portraiture competition. Additionally, her work was nominated for the Paul Huf FOAM award by the Foam Fotografiemuseum in Amsterdam, an international photography prize for artists under 35.
Cox’s work has recently been published in Vice Magazine, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, and The British Journal of Photography. Cox’s monograph, Shiny Ghost, was published December 2016 through Aint Bad Editions.
Rachel Cox is an Assistant Professor at The University of Iowa and is represented by Talley Dunn Gallery in Dallas, TX.