Where Roses Take Root (2025)

Where Roses Take Root is a visceral exploration of beauty’s relationship to suffering, an image that is both tender and macabre. A young woman, eyes closed and lips parted as if caught between breath and surrender, blooms from within. Blood and roses spill from her chest in the same motion, indistinguishable from one another. The petals appear to pulse where her heart once was.

⤷ Cox’s handling of light recalls Baroque martyrdom paintings, but here, sanctity is replaced with self-offering. The piece speaks to what it means to let love, art, or pain grow from one’s wounds, to allow tenderness to coexist with devastation. The viewer is left uncertain whether the transformation is fatal or transcendent.

The palette glows with candlelight warmth — honey, crimson, and decay — suggesting that even in loss, beauty insists on returning.