Exhibition Details

Categories:
Exhibitions, Past
Run Dates:
August 23 - December 7, 2024
Artist:
Rachel Cox
Curator:
Mary Statzer, PhD
Gallery:
Van Deren Coke
Reception:
August 23, 4 - 7 PM
Artist Talk:
October 24, 5 - 6 PM

Notes on Care

Photographs by Rachel Cox

A black wall with two large, rectangular, black and white photographs. The photograph on the left shows a nude man giving an IVF shot to a nude woman laying on a bed. The photograph on the right shows the moon shining across an ocean, with light clouds in the sky.
Rachel Cox, Cycles. Silver gelatin prints, 32 x 44 inches. Photograph by Stefan Jennings Batista.

Notes on Care features photographs by artist Rachel Cox from the series Portrait of a Woman. This highly personal body of work chronicles Cox’s experience accessing fertility treatment to start a family.  

The title of the exhibition references the care the artist took when making decisions about how and when to create a family, the compassion she and her life partner Matt Iserman showed each other as they navigated the difficult process of in vitro fertilization (IVF), and the self-care Cox administered to her own body, emotions, and sense of self. 

Rachel Cox, Self Injection (intramuscular, August 2022), 2022. Archival inkjet print, 24 x 30 inches.

Representation is important for Cox; these photographs depict a medical procedure that is rarely observed by the public or depicted in the media, yet over 300,000 people in the United States underwent IVF cycles in 2020 alone, according to the Center for Disease and Control. By making her own body and treatment visible, Cox’s photographs serve as sources of information and comfort.

Notes on Care links to Hindsight Insight 5.0 through microphotography and further explores the intersection of science and art. The exhibition features three microscopic photographs taken by a technician in a fertility clinic that Cox claims as her own, honoring and infusing them with equal value, meaning, and care. 
 
Rachel Cox, Capable of Life, 2023. Palladium print, 14 x 14 inches.

Rachel Cox has worked primarily in image-based media on two long-term personal projects, exploring the American funeral industry and the reproductive healthcare system. Cox holds an MFA in Photography from the University of New Mexico and currently lives in Iowa City, IA, where she is Assistant Professor of Photography at The University of Iowa.

Cox’s photographs have been exhibited in museums and photo fairs in the US and abroad, including the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO; The Houston Center for Photography; The Belfast International Photography Festival; The Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland; Museo Amparo, Pueblo, Mexico; and Photo London. Her work has been collected by more than a dozen museums, including The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Amon Carter Museum of Art in Fort Worth, and Pier 24 Photography in San Francisco. She also has an active editorial career, with publishing credits in GUP International Photography Magazine, Vice Magazine, The Huffington Post, The British Journal of Photograph, The  Guardian, and TIME. 

Notes on Care will be on view in the UNM Art Museum’s Van Deren Coke Gallery from August 20 through December 7, 2024. We invite you to join us for an artist talk with Rachel Cox on Thursday, October 24, 2024. Visit our event calendar for more details.