What: Shiny Ghost, an exhibition of photographs by Rachel Cox, a University of North Texas alumna and adjunct professor, about her grandmother, Barbara Jane Violet.
When: The exhibition runs from Feb. 4 (Saturday) to April 29 (Saturday). The opening reception will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. and the artist talk will take place at 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 4 (Saturday). The event will include a book signing, with books for sale.
Where: UNT ArtSpace Dallas, 1901 Main St., Dallas.
Hours: See gallery.unt.edu.
Cost: Free.
DENTON (UNT), Texas - A new exhibition at UNT ArtSpace Dallas will feature photographs of a woman who shopped at Neiman-Marcus and kept turtles for pets.
Shiny Ghost, running from Feb. 4 (Saturday) to April 29 (Saturday), features pictures taken by University of North Texas alumna and adjunct professor Rachel Cox.
The “shiny” refers to the subject of the photographs – Cox’s paternal grandmother, Barbara Jane Violet, and her quirky personality. The “ghost” refers to how photography turns people, especially the deceased, into ghosts.
“Their likeness reappears over and over again and they live on through photographs,” Cox said.
The exhibition compiles 10 years of photographs, with the majority coming from 2011, when Violet was diagnosed with a rare brain disease.
The pictures are a variety of still lifes and candid images of Violet, who grew up in Irving. As a child of the Great Depression, she ended up buying many signifiers of wealth, such as Cadillacs and fur coats, and she often got her hair and nails done professionally. She was very courteous and religious, Cox noted.
Cox didn’t connect with her when she was a teenager in the 1990s. But after the diagnosis, Cox wanted to remember Violet before her personality disappeared.
One image features Violet in her backyard, wearing a red dress and holding two turtles upside down while smoking. She would always hold her pet turtles that way so they didn’t pee on her.
“That was something normal to me,” Cox said. “It is an everyday, funny picture.”
After she died of an unexpected seizure at age 79 in 2012, Cox photographed the aftermath of her death – taking pictures of materials that were important to Violet and those that were sent to Goodwill.
In one photograph, “Fur” shows her mink coat on a hanger. Another, titled “Bequeath This, Glass,” features Violet holding a glass container that she will pass down to Cox.
Cox said she is pleased with the reaction she gets from viewers.
“The amazement that people have connected to them trumps the sadness,” Cox said.
The exhibition is an edited version of a monograph, Shiny Ghost, that features more pictures. Books will be on sale and a book signing will take place during the opening reception from 4 to 6 p.m. on Feb. 4 (Saturday). The artist talk will take place at 5:30 p.m. that day.
Cox graduated in 2006 from UNT with a major in photography and has been exhibiting nationally and internationally the last ten years. Her work has recently been shown at Centrol National de las Artes in Mexico City; Baijia Lake Museum in Nanjing, China; The Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland; and at PHOTO London 2016.
She will begin a CentralTrak residency from January to June at the University of Texas at Dallas. Cox has worked for the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. She received her master’s of fine arts degree from the University of New Mexico in 2013. She is represented by Talley Dunn Gallery in Dallas.