Norbert Kox
Norbert Kox (1945 - 2018) painted as an act of prayer as much as an act of creation. He first learned to paint while in the US Army at the age of 17 in then-occupied Munich. When out of the service he repaired motorcycles and custom cars to earn his living, but struggled with alcoholism and drug use. After a bad drug trip at 30, he went sober and committed himself to life as a hermit living in the woods around Suring, WI. For ten years he lived simply, opening himself to listen to God as well as building a chapel and a “way-of-the-cross” culminating in a grotesque, crusified Christ at his hermitage.
In 1985, he attended the University of Wisconsin Green Bay and began painting full time. His lurid paintings, disturbing and apocalyptic, challenge conventional religious attitudes toward idolatry, piety, and interpretation of scripture. His artworks pulsate with apocalyptic anxieties, and injected into the work are biblical verses. Much of the subject matter of Kox’s work comes from his own biblical exegesis in which he examines, expounds, and looks for “symmetries” — verses that when spelled backwards in Hebrew or Greek reveal coded meanings.
Kox has exhibited widely in the United States and Europe and was represented by Portrait Society Gallery at the 2020 Outsider Art Fair in New York.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2020 Outsider Art Fair, New York, Portrait Society Gallery.
2016 Light and Dark, Youngeun Museum of Comntemporary Art, Gwangju, South Korea.
2014 Apocalyptic Surrealism, Tiapapata Art Centre, Samoa.
2013 HEY! II, Halle Saint Pierre Museum, Paris, France.
2011 Daniel Martin Diaz and Norbert H. Kox, Le Galerie TOXIC, Luxembourg.
2009 Last Chance Apocalypse, Le Galerie TOXIC, Luxembourg.
2008 Sacred Pastures, Horse Hospital, London, England.
2005 Diabolique: Images of the Devil in Contemporary Art, Walkers Point Art Center, Milwaukee.
2004 Perfect Picture Jesus: The Glamorous Fraud, America Oh Yes Gallery, Washington DC.
2003 Unquiet Voices, Horse Hospital, London, England.
2001 Deep Waters: Glory and Shame, LaLuz de Jesus Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.
SELECTED PRESS
"Tribute to Norbert Kox: Apocalypse House and the Museum of Visionary Art." Gillet News. Wendy Vorphal. 2018
Wisconsin People & Ideas: The Magazine of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences,Arts and Letters. 2016
"The Outsiders Are In." Wisconsin Academy Review: A Journal of Wisconsin Culture. 2000
SELECTED MUSEUM COLLECTIONS
La Maison Rouge. Paris, France
American Visionary Art Museum. Baltimore, MD
Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art. Chicago, IL
Neville Museum. Green Bay, WI
Thomas Haneman attended the Minneapolis College of Art and Design from 1979 to 1985. He completed his art degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2011. He began painting imaginary plants and flowers in 2016. These lyrical compositions embrace the remarkable forms, colors and nearly science-fiction-like phenomenon of nature. Haneman’s paintings erupt in joyous, surreal blossoming bouquets suggestive of another Wisconsin based artist from a previous generation — Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, as well as Baroque still lives and 18th century Botanical art.
Thomas Haneman's work is in the corporate collection of Acuity Insurance. He lives in Sheboygan, WI
EXHIBITIONS
2019 Inside/Out, Portrait Society Gallery, Milwaukee, WI
2019 Thomas Haneman, Lake Shore Gallery, Sheboygan
2018 Plymouth Arts Center
PRESS
Review, Inside/Out. Urban Milwaukee