Middle Gate

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    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

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    (c)image:M HKA
    Flower, 1969
    Jan Cox
    Drawing , 614 x 850 mm
    charcoal on paper

    During his years in Boston, Jan Cox undoubtedly came to know more of the work of Georgia O'Keeffe (b. 1887, Wisconsin, d. 1986, New Mexico).  Motifs she constantly returns to in her paintings include flowers, rocks, shells, animals, bones and landscapes, often with abstracted contours and forms with subtle, multicolored tones that transform these subjects into powerful, near-abstract representations.  Aside from formal similarities in their work, Jan Cox also felt a kinship by virtue of her relentless quest for beauty and the sublime.  Georgia O'Keeffe was convinced that visual symbols were essential as a way of understanding our surroundings and of exploring our inner selves.  For O'Keeffe, so imbued with the spiritual and the transcendental, 'the sublime' was no theoretical concept but rather something visible in experiences of the everyday world.

    "It is only by selection, by elimination, and by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things." - Georgia O'Keeffe

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