I assume I will go out to New Jersey and start looking around again.

by Charles Dee Mitchell March 27, 2007

This is the last week to see the Lois Dodd exhibition at the Pollock Gallery. It closes on Saturday, March 31.

I think these are the first of her paintings I have actually seen, but I have always known her as a name. I think I got announcements of her exhibitions at Fischbach Gallery over the years. (This work is all courtesy of Alexandre Gallery.) The hazy impression I have had or her was as one of the many stylized realist painters that Fischbach championed. Actually seeing the work has been a delight.

Dodd turns eighty this year, and for most of her adult life she has taken a small piece of masonite, plywood, or aluminum flashing into her backyard or some nearby piece of land and painted what she found there. Her matter-of-fact titles give a good sense of her work: Rhubarb Leaves and Shadow. Echinacea and Dragonfly. The Edge of Beaver Pond. She likes to get in close and avoids horizons. The work is as much about drawing as painting, and when you look at it you see her think her way through the compositions. She paints with confidence and even a sense of authority – but of course she has been at it for some time. I would say that she has earned the occasional missteps in this show that includes work that goes back as far as 1970. The figure studies are not as good as the landscapes, and five paintings of a lunar eclipse come off as too “high concept” for the overall project. The paintings are about light and what it reveals. Dodd is at her best with spiderwebs. She turns them into white picnic blankets spread on the grass.

The show is beautifully installed at the Pollock Gallery, which has a very unpromising location in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center at Southern Methodist University. There are forty paintings on 5 x 7 inch aluminum flashing grouped in sets of five and propped against the wall on narrow shelves. There are suites of framed drawings, the small panel paintings, and three large, for Dodd, works on canvas. The gallery publishes a conversation with the artists they exhibit. The title of this blog entry comes from the conversation Dodd had with SMU professor Mary Vernon. It's good talk that makes you want to know the artist better. She is smart, down-to-earth, and loves what she does – all qualities that come through in the paintings.

(Here are some parking strategies for SMU. Use the underground lot at the Meadows Museum. You might have to lie and claim that you are there for the Balenciaga show. On Saturday faculty lots may be open to visitors.)

6 comments

6 comments

npadron April 3, 2007 - 07:03

The review you wrote about Lois Dodd is awesome. She seems like a cool women. The way she uses aluminum in her pieces would be cool to see up close.

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murph3024 April 3, 2007 - 07:08

She does a great job at showing how light can reveal in certain surroundings

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Sunshine April 3, 2007 - 07:08

I think that the fact that she is 80 and can still get her work done and in galleries is great. She has got something she loves and she is very lucky to still be doing it. Her art is simple, but still really good.

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Sunshine April 3, 2007 - 09:08

Her work seems very inspirational. The insightful nature of close up nature is soothing.

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Sunshine April 3, 2007 - 09:10

The painting is very pretty, all green, painting close up nature most be so relaxing

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Sunshine April 3, 2007 - 09:12

It’s great that Lois is able to paint at her age and I think that gives her a different perspective

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