Steve Cox

Witch Hunt

19 August - 5 September 2009

Steve Cox - Witch Hunt

cox- macbeths witches -
cox- matthew hopkins -
cox- puritan -
cox- the coordinator -
cox- the devil finds work for idle hands -
cox- venus loon -
cox- wasteland hag -
cox- witch hunt -
cox-install1 -
cox-install2 -
cox-install3 -

Steve Cox’s exhibition, Witch Hunt, springs from his abiding interest in the historical persecution of witches. Across Europe between 1500 and 1700 many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were charged with witchcraft and publicly executed. Being labelled a witch by a disgruntled neighbour or church official was an almost certain death sentence. It was often defenceless widows who were so charged. The household cat or dog was usually seen as her ‘familiar’ – proof that she had a supernatural link to the devil’s realm. The wave of hysteria engendered by the fear of witches was like a juggernaut. The climate of fear and terror was insurmountable in a period where rigid conformity was expected and brutally controlled. There was no room for anything but strict convention.

In a broader sense, the idea of a witch hunt has parallels to our own time and culture. Today, waves of panic regularly arise to do with a fear of ‘the other’, or anyone not living the way society wants them to. These ‘others’ may be asylum seekers, non-conformists, people with different religious beliefs, people with different sexual preferences etc. In such a climate, where certain people are marginalised as ‘different’, we need to guard against slipping into vigilante mode. History instructs us that we have a very short memory. The mentality of the ranting mob is never far from the surface.

In this exhibition of exquisitely crafted watercolours and other works on paper, Cox has worked with a mixture of fictional and actual historical figures. One work features Matthew Hopkins, a real witch hunter who was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent, mainly elderly, women. A large triptych features the three witches from Macbeth.

 

Cox’s sympathies lie with the witches. They are the metaphoric victims of a society strangled by its own rigid conformity. The orchestrators of the carnage fair less well in the exhibition. They are: the hate-filled witch-hunters; the bureaucratic coordinators for whom correct paper-work takes precedence over human dignity; the self-righteous puritans, and all those whose agenda is to make everybody exactly the same as themselves.

© John Buckley Gallery 2012