Adrian Cox is a Missouri-based artist who paints “Border Creatures”—organic mutants who defy what we staunchly distinguish as “man” and “nature.” Sometimes they appear humanoid—humorously engaging in intellectual activities, such as painting and stargazing—but their bodies are engulfed with organic debris and sprouting plant life, signifying the messy processes of death and rebirth. In other paintings the Border Creatures resemble amorphous blobs, or grotesque monuments; bulging and unfurling, they spill organs and fleshy petals as they grow. Cox’s paintings hybridize internal worlds with the external, fusing the wilderness with the body in ways that remind us we are not impermeable to the fluidity and chaos of nature.

Images © Adrian Cox

Via ineffable Magazine