VISUAL ART Peter Cox brings Caravaggio’s strobe-lights and shadows into the 21st century CARRIE SCOZZARO
Peter Cox is an alchemist. He doesn’t just draw or paint; he conjures figures out of paper and canvas. Cox has such mastery of technique that whatever he’s creating — from a simple figure study for a torso to the nearly 7-foottall “Atalou,” with its androgynous, masked warrior figure — you can easily forget you’re looking at a two-dimensional image.
His paintings don’t seem merely historical; they make it seem as if Cox has actually been there. When he paints a figure, you can feel its presence. You can sense, for example, the weight of arms stretched overhead in “Female with Feather,” a nearly monochromatic pastel-on-masonite rendering of Cox’s wife. If you mirror the position while looking at this piece, you can feel it viscerally, how the hip
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Detail of Woman with Feather
