“This is a self-portrait of me and my wife in our home in an intimate moment. This painting shows the love and intensity of a lesbian relationship. We are not two women to be gazed at by male viewers, but rather to be identified with by LGBTQ viewers.”

Joan Cox is a figurative painter. Her work focuses on painting intimate relationships between women. She seeks to portray dynamic, complex, sensual, sexual, and loving relationships between women—normalizing them. Joan’s socially relevant paintings open up dialogue through a complex investigation of cultural norms, sexual identity, and body politics.

Based in Baltimore, Maryland, Joan is a painter and photographer, as well as a graphic designer and writer. She earned a BFA from Towson University and an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her work has been shown nationally and can be found in a host of private collections.