On Saturday, February 21st, downtown Los Angeles’ Corey Helford Gallery will unveil a new solo show from figurative painter Adrian Cox. Both a highly celebrated artist and compelling storyteller, The Well of Dreams is the latest development in Adrian’s ongoing narrative, sharing newly crafted intricate works filled with epic mythology. The Los-Angeles based artist’s paintings explore questions of identity, spirituality, and our relationship with the natural world, drawing inspiration from art history, science fiction, mythic archetypes, and his own experience of growing up in a closeted queer family. Featuring over twenty new works, The Well of Dreams marks Cox’s fifth solo exhibition at CHG.
“My paintings are connected by a mythic narrative set in a world that I call the Borderlands.” Explains Adrian Cox. “For over a decade, I’ve cultivated this internal landscape and used my paintings to give it form. Each image that I create is an exploratory step leading deeper into a territory that exists at the threshold of the real and the imagined, the physical world and the world of dreams.”
“As I’ve worked on this exhibition, Maker’s dream quest has increasingly mirrored my own surrealist ventures into the depths.“
Read ahead to learn more about Adrian’s unique world of the Borderlands and delve into this latest narrative development as we explore The Well of Dreams.
Adrian Cox
The Well of Dreams
Opening reception: February 21, 2026 | 7:00 pm – 11:00 pm
Dates: February 21 – March 28, 2026
COREY HELFORD GALLERY
Main Gallery: 571 S. Anderson St. Los Angeles, CA 90033
Open: Tuesday-Saturday, 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm
(310) 287-2340
Adrian Cox The Well of Dreams
“The protagonists of the mythology that I’ve created are beings known as Border Creatures.” Adrian shares. “These creatures are, both physically and spiritually, an extension of the landscape that they inhabit. Their anatomy combines human traits with those of the Borderlands, and they serve as caretakers of their wilderness home. These strange but peaceful creatures are artists, gardeners, poets, scientists, and mystics. When they dream, the landscape dreams with them. The Border Creatures are antagonized by the Specters, blue spirits of pure energy. These spirits casually burn the landscape that they walk upon and are alienated from the world that they inhabit. The Specters perceive that which is other as a threat, or as a resource reducible to its usefulness. The war between the Border Creatures and Specters is a conflict between two distinct ways of being in the world.”
“This exhibition tells the story of Maker, a sculptor whose hand was pierced by a Specter’s arrow while opening a portal into the void. This injury, known as the Cosmic Wound, poisoned Maker and blackened their hand. When Maker was unable to heal themself by conventional means, the other Border Creatures devised a ritual to guide their wounded friend through the Labyrinth of Unknowing and into the dreamworld.
“In The Well of Dreams, Maker’s inward pilgrimage becomes a mystical quest to find a cure for the Cosmic Wound. Their journey takes them through spiritual wastelands and haunted forests of the mind, until at last they find what they seek: the heart of dreams from which all creativity flows. This sacred source of the imagination gives Maker the strength not to heal the Cosmic Wound, but to transfigure it into something powerful and life-affirming.“
“The paintings in this show incorporate symbolic language drawn forth from the subconscious, and as such, my process has become increasingly experimental. For many of these works, I constructed narratives using a variation of the cut-up technique, in which I pulled scraps of sentences randomly from a bag and then arranged them into a story. The text fragments that I used for this process were sourced from numerous books that included several versions of the Arthurian Holy Grail quest as well as my own dream journals. I created other paintings from imagery that I discovered during active imagination sessions, a meditative daydreaming technique.” Adrian Cox continues.
In these sessions, I sat before an altar adorned with symbols from my work while listening to soundscapes that I created to evoke the Borderlands. These experimental approaches to my process have allowed me to treat imaginative play as an act of sacred magic. With this exhibition, I’ve sought to treat creative invention as a spiritually vital way of interacting with the world, of giving it meaning and soul.”
“The Well of Dreams is an exploration of the nature and source of creativity. The story that unfolds in this exhibition suggests the importance of cultivating internal imaginal landscapes and depicts spiritual development as an engagement with the world rather than a departure from it. Ultimately, however, I created these paintings to be symbols for something beyond the reach of discursive thought. The Borderlands exist outside of me and my intentions as an artist, so I invite you to find personal meaning in this mythic world.”
Open to the public and free to attend, Adrian Cox The Well of Dreams is set to debut on Saturday, February 21st from 7:00 pm – 11:00 pm in the Main Gallery, alongside a solo show from Irish oil painter Chloe Early, titled Futures, in Gallery 2 and a two-artist show featuring solos from visual artist Clémentine Bal, titled I Can See You, and multidisciplinary artist Matthew Dutton, titled Domestic Tranquility, in Gallery 3. The shows will be on view at CHG through March 28th.
About Corey Helford Gallery
Established in 2006 by Jan Corey Helford and her husband, television producer/creator Bruce Helford (The Conners, Lopez vs. Lopez, Anger Management, The Drew Carey Show, and George Lopez), Corey Helford Gallery (CHG) has since evolved into one of the premier galleries of New Contemporary art. Its goal as an institution is to support the growth of artists, from the young and emerging to the well-known and internationally established. CHG represents a diverse collection of international artists, primarily influenced by today’s pop culture and collectively encompassing style genres such as New Figurative Art, Pop Surrealism, Neo Pop, Graffiti, and Street Art.
