Norbert Kox (August 6, 1945 – December 29. 2018) was an American

outsider artist Outsider art is art made by self-taught individuals who are untrained and untutored in the traditional arts with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. The term ''outsider art'' was coined in 1972 as the title ...

whose paintings display an unusual approach to religious iconography.

Life

Norbert Kox was born in

Green Bay, Wisconsin Green Bay is a city in Brown County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is located at the head of Green Bay (Lake Michigan), Green Bay (known locally as "the bay of Green Bay"), a sub-basin of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the F ...

in 1945. While a member of the Outlaws biker gang, Kox began working on custom bikes and cars, soon progressing to painting on other items, creating artworks from rubbish or salvaged objects. Leaving the biker gang was an emotional struggle, which Kox only achieved through immersing himself in religion. Kox soon found that he disbelieved the conventional teachings of

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

, preferring his own interpretations. He joined the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

and, with the help of art instruction books, began painting. Between 1975 and 1985, Kox went through a period of religious isolation, living as a hermit in the wilderness of his personal outdoor chapel known as "Gospel Road". On his return to Green Bay, he continued to work on his apocalyptic, spiritual paintings.

Work

Kox's pictures are religious visions of the battle between good and evil, detailing spiritual scripts and examining the worship of various false icons. He organised his compositions with pencil then employed a complex layering technique, depositing layers of vivid oils and watercolors. The final glazing of his paintings, combined with the strongly contrasted hues he used, endowed each of these works with brilliant and translucent qualities.

Bibliography

* Raw Vision No. 14, 1996. * Raw Vision No. 65, 2008. * Religious Visionaries, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, 1991. * The End is Near!: Visions of Apocalypse, Millennium and Utopia. American Visionary Art Museum, 1998.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kox, Norbert 1945 births 2018 deaths American outsider artists Writers from Green Bay, Wisconsin Artists from Wisconsin Military personnel from Wisconsin