The exhibition project Middle Gate II – The Story of Dymphna is a collaboration between M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp) and the cultural centre de Werft in Geel. Middle Gate II is the follow up to the exhibition Middle Gate, curated by Jan Hoet in Geel in 2013. The exhibition concept is closely tied to the legend of the holy Dymphna, saint of the possessed, the mentally ill and patroness against epilepsy and insanity. The legend of Dymphna shares a strong connection to the identity of Geel, "the charitable city".

Jan Cox

(c)image: M HKA
Untitled, 1978
Mixed Media , 100 x 40 x 20 cm
ostrich plume and marble

As a humanist, Jan Cox was committed to a dualistic worldview.  The notion of the dichotomy - man/woman, matter/intelligence, steadfastness/inconstancy - and the impenetrable reality that sits alongside dream and hope, receives its visual manifestation in works such as Untitled or Marmer en pluim (Marble and Feather)

Only too aware of his own weaknesses, in 1952 Cox writes the following about his wife: "... there is Yvonne, a positive and joyous soul who is unconcerned with having the approval of others.  She does what she wants to do.  She has mettle; I appear timorous.  It astonishes me to see how she can be so unreasonably certain about some values.  Sometimes this irks me, but that's what I love about her...".   

In later works, as well, Cox seeks to create a visual translation of 'the contrast', and in the series The Calvary and more particularly in The Descent from the Cross - with a nod to Giotto - he endeavors to reconcile the spiritual with the physical and the worldly.  The palette is reduced; it's all in the power and the energy.  Impasto, with interiority made manifest on canvas.