Meet Martin Cox of Martin Cox Photography

Today we’d like to introduce you to Martin Cox.

Martin, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up in Britain, went to a couple of great Art Schools and lived in London. I had a photography exhibition in San Francisco and this leads me to a mad adventure the following year which took me from London to New York, back to San Francisco where I worked in several artist-run spaces and eventually moved to Los Angeles which is now home.

When I arrived in LA I knew almost no one. I got a job at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) when it was located in Downtown, this became my community. I documented all the exhibitions and performances, became a staff member, and later became a member of the board during the transition to Hollywood. Working at LACE was transformative, without I would have returned to San Francisco.

Eventually, I decided to throw myself further into photography. I worked in a renowned Hollywood photo lab printing beautiful black and white prints for a raft of top LA photographers and learned a lot about the medium. Then as digital took over, I left the lab to study with a few mentors and began to shoot for my own clients and projects.

Landscape photography really gripped me and was drawn to explore the desert areas outside Los Angeles. This leads to more exhibitions, locally, and in the UK.

I applied to an artist residency in Iceland in the winter a few years ago and place it really struck me, something about the landscape, the people, its history, I was drawn in. In 2017 I was invited by the Husavik Museum to mount a solo exhibition of works I had made that related to Iceland. I spent a month there setting it up my show with photography, photomontage and installation.

The idea of opening an artist residency myself, giving other artists the opportunity to engage with the landscape, to meet other artists, perhaps collaborate and focus solely on their work away from distractions. In Iceland, I had met a ship’s Captain, a sheep farmer and his daughter, three people who knew each other and worked well together we hatched a plan to use an old farmhouse on their property as a location for an artists residency in the Westfjords region of Iceland. I am working there in July setting up the program and preparing the studio. We named it GilsfjordurArts after the local fjord, I am its artistic director and our first artists are coming by the end of July. A website in the works, but for now we live on Instagram @GilsfjordurArts gathering artists by word of mouth.

Another project that began on a residency is a conceptual museum project called Museum of Ennui. A version of it was shown in Iceland last summer. Then, LA’s art treasure Kristine Schomaker of ShoeBox Projects (working with a group called The Shed Collective) invited me to create a three-month exhibition: the Museum of Ennui at her projects space in the Brewery Arts Complex. I curated 21 artists, visual, literary and sound artists into a 21inch wide former broom closet with small works meant to be viewed closely in a museum for one. The Museum will rise again to a new location and a new form in the future. Website www.museumofennui.org and Instagram @museumofennui

I am represented by Fabrik Projects who opened an exhibition of my landscape photography this summer from June 9th – July 21st. The exhibition Snow Drawing, prints of temporary snowbound landscapes in varied light conditions shows at Fabrik Projects’ gorgeous exhibition space on La Cienega at Venice Blvd.

Has it been a smooth road?
Never smooth, a near-death experience helped me focus on pursuing specific experiences (such as the landscape photography projects, collaborative installation projects with other artists and now working with Icelanders to open the artist residence) and it helped me to let go of other activities or habits. It’s helpful to comprehend time as finite.

I’ve had all kinds of twists and turns. Making the transition from London to the US was not always a picnic, but not as complicated as moving from full-time work to being a full-time artist. I am not sure that is ever easy. There are forward and backward steps, shifting priorities, compromises with all kinds of freelancing gigs coming and going. Balance is the elusive goal.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Martin Cox Photography – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Having worked with artists a great deal, I get asked to shoot their paintings and installations for catalogs and publications and also to shoot artist portraits.

My arc has been from an artist working in artist-run spaces, photo lab worker, performance art documenter, a freelance photographer, interiors and fine art photographer and back to full-time artist again and now residency director too. I love to take photographs.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Community, diversity. I really see LA’s strength in the vibrant mix of people coming here to explore their skills and work with each other. When I moved to Los Angeles, I was not keen on how the city looked, it appeared unfinished, but the communities of artists, activists and neighbors really drew me in. Then later the subtle visual charm that LA processes revealed itself and now I’d not exchange it. I have begun to photographs LA ugly shimmer.

I hope the pressure that housing costs places in the arts communities will improve or we will continue to lose a vital part of the population. If artists cannot afford anywhere to live or work, and galleries and alternative spaces cannot survive they will all move on and with them the vitality of the city. In Echo Park there has been an astonishing change in the time I have been here, it remains a great place to live but it’s too expensive for new arrivals and only rent control prevents a complete rout.

It looks as though life of the strip on Sunset Blvd is about to shift towards the influence of chain stores and chain restaurants as rents continue to spiral, we are losing the uniqueness that we’ve always had here. This seems to be a global phenomena however and not easily solved, I try to focus on creativity both in my own work and to build circumstances and communities that foster and serve creativity wherever the maybe.

There is an Icelandic expression þetta reddast I heard, it means ‘it’ll all work out in the end’. For stoic and even-tempered Icelanders, þetta reddast is less a starry-eyed refusal to deal with problems and more an admission that sometimes you must make the best of the hand you’ve been dealt. Sometimes things works out, sometimes they don’t, but we don’t let that stop us from trying.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.martincox.com
• Phone: 2134822676
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @martincoxphotos @museumofennui @gilfjordurarts
• Facebook: facebook.com/martincoxphotos
• Twitter: martincoxphotos
• Other: www.museumofennui.org

Image Credit:
Juliana Barrett

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