LOIS DODD
Flashings
September 1 through October 2, 2004
The gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of Lois Dodd's small-scale plein-air paintings on aluminum roofer's flashing. The show will consist of 40 works of oil on aluminum, each approximately 5 x 7 inches. Selections from the show may be previewed at www.alexandregallery.com (upcoming exhibitions).
Images depicted are locations around her studios in Manhattan, the Delaware Water Gap and Maine. The small-scale of these works, executed with quick fluid stokes that describe the landscape of her quotidian places, suggests a diary-like quality. The portable panels are part of a spontaneous working method that enables Ms. Dodd to capture the atmosphere of a day or the mood
of an evening working beside a road, in a quarry, or on a neighbor's
property. Deborah Weisgall has written (2003) of Dodd, "These works are like small poems composed with deceptively simple words. They resonate long after we have absorbed their sense." There is a view toward the formal and essential in Dodd's work. A
directness to the paintings which omits specifics of a scene, dealing
instead with a compositional lyricism and a flat non-illusionistic abstraction. The night paintings in particular emphasize these formal qualities. In Road Looking North the silhouette of the trees amass in an inky blue black middle ground that slices into the night sky, while the road and hillside recede in a pewter half-light.
Lois Dodd (b. 1927) studied at The Cooper Union in the late 1940s. In 1952 she was one of the five founding members of the Tanager Gallery, the first artist run gallery in New York. It was also in the 1950s when she began spending her summers in Maine where she shared a summer studio with the painter Alex Katz. Dodd is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the National Academy of Design. Since 1954 her work has been the subject of over 50 one-person exhibitions.
Currently on view this summer are: "Four Seasons in Maine: Lois Dodd's Small Plein-Air Paintings" at Bowdoin College, July 29 September 5; and "Lois Dodd Nudes in the Landscape," at Dartmouth College, August 3 August 29, 2004.
Concurrently on view at the gallery:
Melville McLean: Recent Photographs: September 1 through October 2.
For further information or images please contact Ellen Robinson at
212.755.2828 or at ellen@alexandregallery.com.