Obedient Creature (2025)

Obedient Creature marks one of the most quietly devastating works in The Damnation Project. A woman sits enthroned in dim light, her face mournful, her hands poised in reluctant benediction. She wears a gown woven from straw, bones, and decay—an imitation of sanctity rather than its embodiment. From her head sprout faint, lamb-like ears, transforming her into both offering and idol. Around her stand four faceless attendants, their features erased into submission, hands hovering as if awaiting instruction or absolution.

⤷ This piece addresses the ritualisation of obedience. The central figure is neither saint nor martyr but something in between, a being constructed by expectation, crowned in gentleness and rot. Her lamb’s ears evoke the biblical image of the “sacrificial lamb,” but her posture rejects purity: the raised hand does not bless; it refuses. Cox captures the unbearable stillness of someone who has been taught to suffer beautifully.

The faceless figures surrounding her heighten the sense of loss, not just of self but of identity as a collective. They are witnesses, disciples, perhaps even creators of this “obedient creature,” yet their anonymity erases the boundaries between oppressor and believer. Their devotion feels almost bureaucratic, like an endless performance of compliance handed down through generations.

In tone and execution, the work recalls the late Renaissance fascination with the holy grotesque, yet Cox’s lens is distinctly feminist and psychological. The painting critiques how systems—religious, patriarchal, institutional—manufacture the illusion of virtue through subjugation. The result is a scene that feels sacred, sorrowful, and cruelly serene, where faith is indistinguishable from control.