Elissa Cox's sculptures sprawl across gallery floors and reach off ceilings and walls to create a network of organic bodies in space. Her work often lays slumped and spread from one sculpture into the next creating a slur of objects. Navigating through her work feels like traveling through a mutated garden that has been infected with an otherworldly virus. Engorged limbs connect to bruised egg sacks and broken open cavities. There is a sense of anxiety about corrosion, and a simultaneous need to recreate it.
Although very much connected to organic anatomy and growth the forms recall interior decorative accessories like holiday wreaths and beaded fruit center pieces. Reminiscent of a Thanks Giving cornucopia, these sculptures present their insides as fruit.
Formally, Elissa Cox's sculptures relate ideas of organic decay with flowering attraction, embellishment and the body. The posture of the works bring in questions about merchandizing and the display of objects. An issue that I would argue, is a primary concern of contemporary sculpture today.
