“Every day I work on the pictures, I work hard on them and try my best. I take words from the box and put them on the paper. I love any one of these colors, and try to put as many as I can. It’s hard to figure out where to put the dots, the X goes at front and back. I just like doing it, it’s a good thing. It takes me a while.” -- JC

 

Jenny Cox began working at Lower Merion Vocational Training Center in 1981 as a piece worker and paper shredder. When LMVTC became Center for Creative Works in 2011, she was hesitant to explore artwork. She was eventually inspired to paint after seeing her peers try it. Early paintings feature lines and dots as design elements, and experiments with color relationships and blending. Eventually, Cox discovered markers and pens, and her work took off: marks developing into letters, letters into words, and cells of color demarcating the space of her architecturally-minded compositions.

 

Cox brings the same kind of methodical focus to creating works on paper as she had to shredding it, but brings a unique love of color and shape. Her democratic approach to her materials – cycling through a collection of markers and flash cards with words – develop a random assortment of colors and phrases on the page that are uniquely ordered by Cox’s distinctive point of view.

 

Selected Exhibitions

2019

Outsider Art Fair, Metropolitan Pavilion, New York, NY

2018

Jenny Cox: Like Logs, Fleisher/Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA 

Landscapes Seascapes Escapes, Patricia Nugent Gallery, Rosemont College, Bryn Mawr, PA

We're In It: Remaking the World, VCAM, Haverford College, Haverford, PA

Outsider Art Fair 2018, Metropolitan Pavilion, New York, NY

2017

Outsider Art Fair 2017, Metropolitan Pavilion, New York, NY

2016

Linear/Nonlinear, Delaware County Community College; Media, PA

2015

Woodmere Annual: 75th Juried Exhibition, Woodmere Museum; Philadelphia, PA

2014

All Different Colors, Fleisher Ollman Gallery: Philadelphia, PA

St. Louis Outsider Arts Fair: St. Louis, MO

Illuminations, AIRSPACE Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2013

Psychedelphia, Pageant Soloveev: Philadelphia, PA

Outside Sound, The Rotunda: Philadelphia, PA

2012

Outsider: 1, Bluestone Gallery: Philadelphia, PA

Color of Art, Grounds For Sculpture: Trenton, NJ

Milkboy Café: Ardmore, PA   

 

Awards, Honors, Collections

Private Collection of George Jevremovic

Private Collection of Alessia Antenori

 

Press

Brut Force: ‘Get Born: Worlds within worlds in the work of Jenny Cox'

Metro: ‘I’ve Never Seen Anything Like It:’ New Fleisher /Ollman show features works of artists with Developmental disabilities'

The Art Blog: 'Creative Sanctuary- Psychedelphia at Pageant: Soloveev'