Tomory Dodge at Knoxville Museum of Art : Aug 11-Nov 5

Monday, 17 July 2006 12:01

Knoxville, Tenn.– The Knoxville Museum of Art will present the paintings of Los Angeles-based artist Tomory Dodge, Aug. 11-Nov. 5, 2006, as part of the KMA’s critically acclaimed SubUrban series.  This will be Dodge’s first solo museum exhibition.

“In his spectacular paintings on canvas, Tomory Dodge explores what he calls the ‘collisions between nature and culture, or fantastic sites that seem located on the very edge of society’s reach,’” said Dana Self, Barbara W. and Bernard E. Bernstein Curator of Collections and Exhibitions.

Human made objects such as empty cans and litter, but not people, appear in Dodge’s lushly painted landscapes, rupturing the eerie nature one might have entered through the thick paint.  The paintings are commitments to painterly gesture and the pleasures of painting, but they lead the viewer through that exterior surface into ambiguity and unexplored narrative possibilities.

Dodge’s colors are often dark and mysterious, prompting the observer to question these shaded grottoes on the edge of the real and the artificial.  For instance, the painting Weekend, titled after a film by Jean-Luc Godard, slowly unfolds as the objects in the painting become more apparent.  Everything from foliage to object is painted with the same broad brush stroke, presenting an abstracted surface to pierce.  A drum set seems forlornly abandoned in this outdoor scene where up and down seem almost the same.  What has happened here and why?

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