It turned out that in the case of nonagenarian New Jerseyan Lois Dodd, what she wanted to paint was, for the most part, right in front of her eyes all along. Stairs, gardens, windows, doors, and even washing lines. The humdrum raised to the level of high art? Perhaps, though I like to think that Dodd was simply someone who could see beauty everywhere she looked.
So she didn't have to travel far to find her subjects. They were all around her. She is, for the most part, a master of light and colour, they're her real subjects. Looking at the work on display in a smallish four room show at Modern Art on Helmet Row (in the shadow of Nicholas Hawksmoor's towering obelisk of St Luke's in Shoreditch) I'm reminded of many other artists. Edward Hopper. Pierre Bonnard, Paul Nash, and Ed Ruscha are a fairly disparate bunch but there's something of each of them in Dodd's work. Yet she remains, resolutely, very much her own artist.
Door Staircase (1981)
Born 1927, in Montclair, NJ, this is Dodd's first 'survey' outside America and Modern Art have boldly claimed it "a major exhibition" which is probably pushing it a bit but in comparison to some of the dreadful shows I've seen there I'll cut them some slack on that. She studied textile design at Cooper Union in New York from 1945 to 1948 and three years later moved to Italy where she lived for a year with the sculptor William King.
On their return to the USA, Dodd and King founded the Tanager Gallery on New York's Tenth Street that was operational until 1962. Artists like Willem de Kooning, Alex Katz, Helen Frankenthaler, and Philip Guston were often to be found hanging round there but Dodd was more inspired by the likes of Hopper and even Cezanne, and by sticking to figurative art and not throwing her lot in with the prevalent Abstract Expressionist movement she found her work, if not herself, marginalised.
Standing Swimmer (1966)
Red Curtains and Lace Plant (1978)
Whilst the likes of Pollock and Rothko were certainly celebrating colour they weren't doing it in a figurative sense and even if other artists rated Dodd's work the critics, always keen on championing a 'movement' were not. It's a real shame because much of her output is excellent.
There's an austere beauty, which reminds me of Paul Nash's war painting, in Headlights and Hillside that sits at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum to the warm pastel shades of the homely Door Staircase. In fact the two main rooms in the exhibition seem to have been split between her dark paintings and her light paintings.
Headlights and Hillside (1992)
Moon + Doorlight (2012)
Burning House, Night, with Fireman (2007)
Total Eclipse - 10.45pm (1996)
One contains eclipses, moonlight, flowers at night, lit windows that had me thinking of the photography of Gregory Crewdson, and even a burning house - which seemed almost too much excitement for Dodd. Someone, you get the impression, who is most inspired by solitude and stillness.
Yellow Iris (2006)
Night House with Lit Window (2012)
People don't crop up much. There's a silhouette of a fireman spraying water on to the burning house and there's the pasty back of a topless swimmer in a work from as far back as 1966 (this show spans decades) but that's your lot. Elsewhere it's all empty rooms, doors ajar, and windows looking out at not very much at all really.
Blue Sky Window's aesthetic is so minimal it does border on the abstraction that may have made Lois Dodd a bigger name and in 1984's Light Under Door we see Dodd make really quite terrific art out of something that most people would pay no heed to. I once saw an artist exhibiting balls of fluff in a gallery but other than that Light Under Door may be an example of the most seemingly insignificant thing I've witnessed an artist turn their attention to.
Front Door Cushing (1982)
Rainy Window, NYC (2014)
Fading Amaryllis (2014)
Falling Window Sash (1992)
Blue Bottle and House Eve (2016)
Blue Sky Window (1979)
Two Windows, Clapboard Sliding (1987)
Light Under Door (1984)
But it's still great. You can see that Dodd's paint is very clearly paint, she's not going for hyperrealism here, but you can still see that it's a door - and that light is coming from under the door. Like the British artist Doreen Fletcher (whose wonderful show at Bow Arts Centre I wrote about back in May), Lois Dodd is happy to celebrate things as they are, not how she'd, or we'd, like them to be.
Unlike Fletcher whose subject matter is often streets, tube stations, and gasholders and tends to be outdoors, Dodd seems to prefer interiors. It's as if she imagines inanimate objects to have deep and meaningful private lives, almost as if they are sentient - but only when we're not looking. Oval Mirror, Wire Backed Chair from 1972 is both utterly timeless and spellbinding at the same time. It's so simple and yet it has a sadness that stops us in our tracks.
Oval Mirror, Wire Backed Chair (1972)
Dormer, Yellow + Blue + Lavender (1985)
It stopped me in mine anyway - but then I'm an awkward git. I find the modern world confusing and though I try to move with it I find it outpaces me at every step. I don't crave technology and I don't crave more money than I need to live reasonably well. I crave connection and I crave communication and in the art of Lois Dodd I was able to get a feel for somebody who's lived long enough to realise that these are the only truly important things. These are the things we'll think about when our time is nearly up. The beauty of an oval mirror, the beauty of a window, the beauty of a purple staircase, and the beauty of both life and art. I felt happier when I left the gallery than I did when I entered it.
Ice in Window (1982)
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