The Peace of Wild Things - Joan G. Cox, Artist
EXHIBIT: June 5 through August 21, 2026
ARTIST RECEPTION: Friday, June 5 with TALK at 5:30
Artist Website → joangcox.com
The show is a deep appreciation for the natural world, remembered and imagined — its title drawn from the beloved Wendell Berry poem.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
The world has enough chaos to go around, and our need for mutual trust and hopefulness could not be greater.
But the reliable hum of the natural world persists and can calm and heal us, nourishing our spirits and reminding us of our place in this life.
These paintings spring from the natural world, remembered and imagined, each eliciting a sense of place and the essence of an experience.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
JOAN GUSTAFSON COX was born in Connecticut and grew up in Chicago. She has made the Twin Cities her home since graduating from the University of Minnesota, where she double-majored in French and Art History.
In her junior and senior years at the university, she took courses in Studio Art. She was influenced and encouraged by her teacher, Victor Caglioti, to change her career path. After graduation she studied with Karl Hagedorn at the Museum School, then returned to the university to broaden her studio arts skills. Over the next five years she continued her studies with Michael Price, Jim Conway at Steve Hartman at Hamline University.
Joan opened her studio in the Dow Building, Saint Paul, four decades ago, and participates with other artist/tenants in an annual open studio event, DO THE DOW, every November. She welcomes visitors to her studio by appointment.
She has worked out-of-doors a great deal: for many winters, under a car port in southwest Florida, and every summer in a large white tent by a lake in northern Minnesota. Her visual imagination is mainly influenced by the natural world.
She has explored a variety of materials and techniques, including oil, acrylic, wax, enamel, pastel, charcoal, sand, and collage. She co-designed and co-supervised the making of a needlepoint altarpiece for Olivet Congregational Church, Saint Paul. She has designed and participated in the making of six stained glass windows in Twin Cities area churches.
Joan has shown in galleries in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Florida, Santa Fe, and Denver, at the Plains Museum in Fargo, the Duluth Art Museum, the DeVos Museum in Marquette, Michigan, and abroad in France, Ireland, and Italy. She has accepted and fulfilled a number of commissions. Her work is represented in a number of corporate, civic, family, and personal collections.
Among her awards and recognitions, she was the recipient of the First Place Prize for Painting at the Minnesota State Fair in 2016.
This is her second exhibition at Watermark Gallery.
