read our interview with Cameron below

HOUSE OF THEODORA CHATS TO CAMERON COX

CAMERON COX IS A PAINTER HAILING FROM BROOKLYN. HER ART, TRICKLED WITH DEMONS AND BLOOD AND SKULLS HAS A CERTAIN MAGIC TO IT, AS IF THE WOMEN SHE PAINTS ARE REACHING THROUGH THEIR SADNESS & PAIN TO AN OTHER-WORLDLY KIND OF BLISS.

Can you tell us about the first time you created a piece of erotic art?

The first time that I created a piece of erotic art, I wouldn’t have even known I was doing so. People find all kinds of different things erotic and I think it’s always been a quiet underlying aspect of my work even when I wasn’t aware. Probably my metalsmithing days though, if I had to guess.

Your work often features women and skulls and blood and demons. How would you describe your artistic style?

Sometimes it’s hard to hear those words out loud because the physical makeup and connotations attached with them seem so far from what I think I’m putting on paper. But that is in fact what they are: women, skulls, blood and demons. Women bleeding as the easiest escape route—raped, degraded and marginalized on a day to day basis. I want to bring those women back from underground and help them reclaim what was and has always been theirs. If I had to describe my artistic style I’d say check a little higher—she’s not home right now.

What’s your artistic process?

Excellent question! My work has always been more therapeutic than anything. It’s very personal and mainly lying between self-portraits and portraits of women I love/respect within a similar vessel. I make to heal. Process is one of the most wonderful things about creating work. It’s the bones within the flesh. The thing you don’t see. If you’re doing it for anything else, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.

Who are the women you paint?

Most of my paintings are self-portraits or portraits within self-portraits of important women in my life.

interview continues below image

What are the sights, smells, sounds and tastes you like around you when you paint?

I just like to have the time to paint. I don’t really think I put a whole lot of thought into the rest of the environment. I recently visited my mother in Hawaii though and have been very into a Vintage Hawaiian Magic station I’ve found on Spotify while working.

IN one of your captions on InstagraM, you talked about the importance of working on your trade. When things gets really hard and the obstacles seem big, what drives you to keep working on your trade?

I’ll just leave you with a favorite quote of mine from the wonderful Miss Annie Clark — “I am my work. I am my life’s work. I’ll never quit doing this.”

What’s it been like as a female artist in the erotic art space? Tell us about your challenges, triumphs, frustrations, aha! moments?

Being a female artist in the erotic art space has had just as many perks as it has down falls—most of the frustrations being cis men not understanding a woman could know anything about her own sexual identity/dare talk about it out loud. Triumphs and I’m talking TRIUMPHS being women coming up to me and thanking me for showing them something they dare hadn’t looked at in years. I also have met a lot of really great people in the erotic art community and have made bonds for life with so many amazing people/creators that I don’t think I would have outside of the space. It’s a wonderful community.

What are you currently working on?

Currently I am working on a few things. My best friend always says—“pick one thing and finish it!” I’m trying to be better about that, but there are a few commissions in the works as well as a project I can’t quite talk about just yet. And recently have been revisiting the idea of creating my own tarot deck. After a week long destination wedding in the woods with some very magical humans I’m craving a little more spellbinding work in my veins.

interview continues below image

What work of your own has had the biggest impact on you and why?

I think the work that I have created/been a part of the creating process with other artists has been the most impactful. The relationships that you make are indispensable. Collaboration is highly underrated in the art world, almost to a point of taboo. It’s very odd. I’ve never understood it. The things that you learn about yourself and the work and not being 100% comfortable and in charge of the thing that you’re creating is such a beautiful process. You fall out of your skin a little and that’s never a bad thing in my book.

Who are your favourite female artists, living or passed?

There are so many amazing women out there creating for the world past and present, I’ll just name a few: Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, Hiba Shahbaz, Marilyn Minter, Swoon, Kristen Liu-Wong, Molly Crabapple, Miss Van, Erin Riley, _y_s_s_a_, Club Clitoris, Spunk Rock, Apollonia Saintclair, Bette Midler, Stevie Nicks, Frida Kahlo, Kiki Smith, Annie Clark, Marina Abramovic, Laurie Anderson, Amanda Palmer, Tracy Emin, Nan Goldin, Kara Walker, Yoko Ono...the list goes on and on, but I would have to say that my mother, my sisters and all the beautiful and talented writers, poets, musicians, photographers, perverts, introverts in my life today would have to be my favorite.

LOCATION: brooklyn, new york

TYPE OF ART: painting

PREFERRED MEDIUM: paint

SIZE RANGE: on average 24 x 30"

OTHER DESIGN PRODUCTS: prints, sweaters, t-shirts, pins & stickers

PRICE RANGE: $5- $600

COMMISSIONS: yes

CAMERON COX

PAINTER | BROOKLYN, NEW YORK