Within the catalog asserting the late painter Dorothy Hood’s solo debut in Mexico Metropolis in 1943, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda describes her artwork as pushed by inbuilt contradictions, tracing in it each a “savage silence” and a “desperate interrogation.” Showcasing her late-period work, Dorothy Hood: Bear in mind One thing Out of Time — the painter’s first solo present in New York in 43 years — proves Neruda’s insights prescient.
Born in 1918 in Bryan, Texas, the artist spent formative many years amongst a world coterie in postwar Mexico. She was mentored by muralist José Clemente Orozco and befriended Luis Buñuel, Frida Kahlo, and Leonora Carrington — Modernists who, like Hood, utilized avant-garde methods to an idiosyncratic and infrequently literary creativeness. On condition that pedigree, she has been variously related to Latin American Surrealists who drew on pre-colonial imagery and fable and later with the contemplative formalism of the Shade Discipline motion. Talking for herself, Hood cut up the vital distinction, calling herself an “Abstract Surrealist.”
In Bear in mind One thing Out of Time, such labels fall away because the present immerses the customer in Hood’s usually unnerving dramaturgy. Eight large-scale, predominately purple work allude to vaguely recognizable far-off terrains. “Going Forth V” (1997) could possibly be an aerial view of a vivid purple lava pool, whereas the luxurious particulars in “Brown Cloud Floating” (c. Seventies–80s) resemble illuminated striations in a seabed.
Dorothy Hood, “The Face in the Sea” (c. Seventies), oil on canvas
Regardless of real-world associations, these giant work’ fluid surfaces and expansive tonal gradients talk vacuity or weightlessness too, oscillating between moods of serenity and dread, underscoring Hood’s account that her work are “landscapes of my psyche.” In “Tough Homage to Arshile Gorky” (c. Seventies), rectangular purple varieties are punctured by asymmetrical blue-gray fissures.
Related disruptive patterns inform work like “Untitled” (c. Eighties) and “Blue Waters” (c. Eighties). Within the former, agitated stains and drips kind purple and blue islands on a monochromatic black and white background; within the latter, a big, arcing horizon seems inside what resembles a noise-distorted satellite tv for pc picture of a anonymous planet.
Essentially the most shocking works listed below are 5 giant figurative drawings that dispense with abstraction and make express Hood’s curiosity in otherworldly dimensions. Sinuous contour drawings comparable to “Terrible Flower” (c. Seventies) depict humanoid figures — area aliens or malformed kids — as sci-fi characters posed alongside mythic beasts.
Dorothy Hood, “Advertisement for “Haiti” or A Reiteration of “Silver Wheels” (1982–97), collage on matboard
In that respect, “Untitled 1050” (1982–97) could possibly be Hood’s elegy to our fragmented tradition, and even her coded swansong to artmaking. The collage features a copy of Georgia O’Keeffe’s watercolor “Evening Star No. III” (1917), in addition to wallpaper sample, an autumn leaf folded inside wrinkled gold sheets, and a particle physics picture taken throughout a collider experiment. It’s the sort of multi-valued artifact one can think about Houston’s NASA program — the place Hood interacted with scientists and astronauts — launching into outer area to face in for a looking out and unsettled humanity again on earth.
Dorothy Hood, “Untitled 1050” (1982–97),
collage on matboard
Element from Dorothy Hood, “Tough Homage to Arshile Gorky” (c. Seventies),
oil on canvas
Dorothy Hood, “Untitled” (c. Eighties),
oil on canvas
Dorothy Hood, “The Terrible Flower” (c. Seventies), ink on paper
Dorothy Hood: Bear in mind One thing Out of Time continues at Hollis Taggart (521 West twenty sixth Road, Chelsea, Manhattan) by way of April 12. The exhibition was curated by the gallery.
