About David Cox

Age: 38 years
Subsection/Skin: Jangala
Language: Gooniyandi, Walmajarri
Born: Yiyili

David was born at Yiyili, between Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing. He was schooled at Yiyili and spent most of his early years there. This area has many creeks running through it, which feed the Fitzroy River in the west of the Kimberley. Cox now lives in Warmun Community, Turkey Creek, where he now paints.

David is part of a younger group of artists at Warmun who have an intense interest in the Dreaming stories of their ancestors and are interested in exploring new ways of communicating these stories to the wider Australian community and members of the Warmun community. He learned to paint under the instruction of established Warmun artist Churchill Cann, whose aerial approach to viewing landscape and his use of fine sweeping ‘watercolour’ strokes (using the trademark Warmun natural ochres) have greatly influenced David’s work. Many of David's stories have passed to him from his mother, while David's father, also an artist, taught him to paint.

David works part time at the Warmun Art Centre, stretching and priming the canvases for all the artists at the Centre. He generally prepares stretchers in the morning and devotes time in the afternoons to his own work. David is considered a ‘young emerging artist’; he is also a keen musician and plays in the local Warmun band. He is the cousin of well-known Warmun artist Katie Cox.

Medium

Natural ochre on canvas

Themes

Country surrounding Halls Creek
Dreaming stories from Yiyili country
Aerial perspectives of country

Group Exhibitions

2007 'Christmas at Red Dot', Red Dot Gallery, Singapore
2007 'Parcours des Mondes', Galerie Arts d'Australie, Stéphane Jacob, Paris, France
2007 'Warmun Snapshot', Aboriginal Art Fair, Darwin, NT
2003 'Ngarrgooroon, Yiyili & Yarunga: New works from Warmun', Hogarth Galleries, Sydney, NSW
2002 'All that Gija Country', Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide, SA
2002 Thornquest Gallery, Gold Coast, Qld
2002 Coolmalie Cultural Centre, Bachelor, NT
2002 'New works from Warmun', Bett Gallery, Hobart, Tas
2001 'Short on Size', Short Street Gallery, Broome, WA
2001 Flinders University Art Museum, Adelaide, SA Flinders University Art Museum "In Celebration- The Peter Bailie Acquisitive Exhibition", Adelaide, SA
2001 'Guildford Grammar School Art Exhibition', Perth, WA