Nature is his biggest inspiration

The St. Stephen's Art Show and  Coconut Grove Arts Festival are February 16-18, 2019. We'll be profiling some of the artists who are participating this year. 

Meet Josh Brooke Coté.  Josh will be exhibiting his work at the Coconut Grove Arts Festival for the first time this year. He lives in Bakersville, NC, which is right near Asheville, the arts and culture center of the state. He is married to Pam Cote a non-profit development grant writer for 18 years, "No kids but three beloved rescue cats and one rescue dog!" says Josh.

Josh has shown his work around the country. "I have lived on West Coast near Seattle and also Eugene Oregon and have done shows across the country all the way to the East Coast including Bellevue Art Museum, WA; New Orleans Jazz Festival, Des Moines Art Festival, Winter Park, FL, Columbus, OH, Sedona, AZ and many more," he says.

He has won numerous awards over the years including Best In Show for his sculptures. However the collages he will be bringing to Coconut Grove have never been to another art festival. So this is something to look forward to.

Josh is known for his wire work, but you will see his hand cut paper collage at the show this year. He says, "Working with wire and steel sculpture has taken a toll on my hands, using pliers for 12 hours a day, as I've gotten older, I have this past year begun to create 2D hand cut paper collages which is the sole medium that I will be exhibiting at Coconut Grove."

Josh's restored 1912 farmhouse with one of his concrete sculptures, "Death Rides a Girl's Bike."

Josh's collage work space is a light-filled sun room, an addition to his restored 1912 farmhouse in the mountains near the Appalachian trail.

Over the years, he has had many great influences and inspirations, "First of whom was my father who was an artist for 25 years, also come to mind are literary inspirations e.g. Dr. Seuss, Lewis Carroll...but big visual influences for me include Heironymous Bosch, Carravagio, Brueghel, and contemporary artists like Odd Nerdrum,  Kris Kuksi, Will Kurtz and Joel Peter Witkin," he says.

Josh and one of his rabbits.

I asked Josh about the rabbits, he likes to create lots of rabbits (see his website for lots of them - cotefineart.com. 

"Yes the rabbits influence my work greatly too...they are magical...my muse, and the keepers of my art portal... They must be my totem animal...It all begins with my childhood stuffed animal bunny, long story short, I was separated from my cherished stuffed animal Peter Rabbit and it traumatized me a bit.

"Was I born into this world clutching my favorite stuffed animal, a blue felt, moleskin bunny? It seems so. My earliest memories are inseparable with my stuffed animal named simply: Bunny, my twin. Dangerous forays into the woods, splashing in mud-puddles or even field-trips to the dump: Bunny was always right there alongside me!

"I grew up in the the generation before our current litigious society emerged its ugly head. It was the 70's in Waitsfield, Vermont. I was 6 years old. Kids got to go the dump and play there. When my Dad went to the dump to take real garbage, he would take my brother and I along (Bunny gets to go!) The dump was a fantasy land of treasure. I remember finding ancient Chinese coins, a coil of copper wire, and once, a discarded animal: Peter, a stuffed rabbit.  Peter became just as close as Bunny.

"Trauma struck one day, when we moved from Vermont back to Michigan. Eight hours into the drive, I joltingly remembered that Peter was still in my bedroom closet back in Vermont! Why we never turned around or why Peter was not shipped back to me, is lost....new bunnies came into my life, but Peter is forever lost...until... pulled out of the portal here, he lives once again in the medium of wire. Never grow up..."

“From Death Springs Life” 48 X 48 inches, hand-cut paper collage. 

Josh grew up drawing and painting, he watched his father draw and paint and it quickly became something that Josh was good at. "I have always, drawn, painted, carved wood, stone, clay, wire, now collage...Yes, I did start twisting wire one day, I was headed to a wedding and did not have a gift to bring, I used a pile of old electrical wire I had been saving and made my first wire sculpture: a fish," he says.

Josh loves nature, you can see it in his work. He has always lived in rural mountains or remote spaces, for sanity and for inspiration. "Nature has been a huge inspiration for me, a great teacher, with natural forms, color and light, colors my imagination and inspiration for dreams, myth and my art."

Josh has a history with the Coconut Grove Arts Festival, he told me, "About forty three years ago at the Coconut Grove Art Festival, I was a five year old child and my parents (who were artists and had a booth at the art festival) lost track of me for two hours! This was indeed a life altering event as I felt saturated in the cacophony of the art and artists of the fair. As if a floodgate had been opened and I was released like a minnow into a fascinating colorful world, alone. Fear turned into fascination. This drifting feeling of freedom and art has impacted my life to this day. I was found on the beach drawing in the sand, safe and sound."

“Sunday Drive” 6 feet tall 4 feet wide, hand cut paper collage, mixed media.