Lucy Dodd

 

Lucy Dodd (*1981) has created a painterly universe that can be understood as a radical reinterpretation of lyrical abstraction and action painting. Her works—biomorphic topographies of random and intentional marks—resemble painted evocations of cosmological and spiritual landscapes. They are characterized by an emphatically process-oriented approach to painting and the use of unusual color pigments, which often derive from nature and Dodd’s personal environment. Exhibitions by the artist, who lives in Woodstock, New York, often incorporate elements of ritual and theater.

 

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For Dodd, the material in her paintings is of vital importance. Fermented walnut shells produce an entire range of brown tones; extracts from the fruit of yew trees bring shades of pink to the canvases. Green is created from pigments that the artist extracts from nettles and the leaves of other plants. Traces of black lichens can be found in her paintings. She uses mate tea extracts, kombucha, dog urine and sumac pigments, paints with minerals such as hematite or with soil samples she collects in various places around the world. She rubs the materials in powder form onto large-format canvases on her studio floor, sprays and smears them as liquid paint or places them on the canvas in their natural state until specific color reactions ensue.

Dodd’s works convey a profound freedom, confidently balancing painterly control and the relinquishing of that control. Circular contours left by kombucha cultures merge with arborescent color structures created in the chemical interplay of certain coloring agents with the canvas. These elements are embedded in moving, organic whirls of color attained through the application, smudging, subtraction and re-addition of pigment extracts. The result are biomorphic color fantasies and atmospheric compositions made of mineral patterns, spots, smears and traces recalling fossils, corals, sky constellations or rock formations. Dodd’s works advance the pictorial repertoire of abstraction in unexpected ways. Possessed of an ethereal, fearless beauty, they are the product of an aesthetic vision that expands the legacy of high modernism to include archaic and cultic aspects.

Dodd’s exhibitions also usually include sculptural objects such as self-made armchairs and other seating. These elements play a key role in the performative dimension of the artist’s practice. Viewers are often encouraged to sit down on furniture she has designed and consume beverages she has prepared, the ingredients of which are sometimes also found in her paintings. Many of her works emit an intense smell. Her exhibitions are multisensory and often include music, and their potency is heightened by theatrical-performative interventions that go far beyond the traditional bounds of painting. Dodd explores the exhibition space as a ritualized place where her works not only take on the status of totemistic objects, they also assume a role as protagonists in a quasi-cultic drama. They are objects that address both the idea of abstraction as a spiritual language and that of the painterly as personal, symbolic theater—objects that emanate a new belief in the transformative power of painting.

 

Works
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd
Holy Basil(ica), 2019

Lucy Dodd
Holy Basil(ica), 2019
Holy Basil, yew berry, squid ink, hematite, avocado, black lichen, spirulina, cinnabar, malachite, green tea, black tea, tulip, epidote, green quartz, walnut, and acrylic on canvas; pigmented cotton on seven chair frames
459.7 × 640.1 × 472.4 cm
181 × 252 × 186 inches

Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd
Holy Basil(ica), 2019

Lucy Dodd
Holy Basil(ica), 2019
Holy Basil, yew berry, squid ink, hematite, avocado, black lichen, spirulina, cinnabar, malachite, green tea, black tea, tulip, epidote, green quartz, walnut, and acrylic on canvas; pigmented cotton on seven chair frames
459.7 × 640.1 × 472.4 cm
181 × 252 × 186 inches

Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd
Miss Mars, 2018

Lucy Dodd
Miss Mars, 2018
Squid ink, hematite, onion skins, liquid smoke, avocado, SCOBY, Kremer’s English Red, iron oxide, dragon's blood, cochineal, azurite, cinnabar, phosphorescents, and acrylic on canvas
309.9 × 462.3 cm
122 × 182 inches

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Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd
The Blow, 2018

Lucy Dodd
The Blow, 2018
Tobacco, ash, cochineal, azurite, dry pigment, and acrylic paint on canvas
157.5 × 120.7 cm
62 × 47 1/2 inches

Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd
The Peaks of Mount Pubis, 2017

Lucy Dodd
The Peaks of Mount Pubis, 2017
Cochineal, charcoal, hematite and pigment on canvas
152.4 × 152.4 cm
60 × 60 inches
154 × 154 cm (framed)
60 5/8 × 60 5/8 inches (framed)

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Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd
The Son, 2018

Lucy Dodd
The Son, 2018
Onion skins, urine, pyramid yellow and cadmium on canvas
330.2 × 330.2 cm
130 × 130 inches

More views
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd
Flight of the Windhorse, 2018

Lucy Dodd
Flight of the Windhorse, 2018
Wild walnut, squid ink, black lichen, SCOBY, dry pigments, and acrylic on canvas
Clockwise from left:
105.4 × 115.6 × 55.9 × 76.8 cm
Clockwise from left:
41 1/2 × 45 1/2 × 22 × 30 1/4 inches

Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd
Dragon Tales, 2018

Lucy Dodd
Dragon Tales, 2018
Wild walnut, cochineal, dye on cotton rope and wrought iron frame
approx. 228.6 × 76.2 × 101.6 cm
approx. 90 × 30 × 40 inches

More views
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd
Butterfly, 2017

Lucy Dodd
Butterfly, 2017
Tetley’s, wild walnut, fermented amaranth leaves, squid ink, Foss leaf extract, Rio Tinto water, snow and ash, hematite, spirulina, Guernica earth, sumac, yerba mate, green tea, pomegranate, black lichen, cochineal, chai, tigers eye, Polar Seltzer, annato, SCOBY, and pigment on canvas
365.8 × 365.8 cm
144 × 144 inches

More views
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd
The Hermit, 2018

Lucy Dodd
The Hermit, 2018
Onion skins, black walnut, squid ink, hematite, azurite, cochineal, Dragon's Blood and pigments on canvas
282.4 × 285.8 cm
111 1/5 × 112 1/2 inches

More views
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd
Dance of the Fire Dragons, 2018

Lucy Dodd
Dance of the Fire Dragons, 2018
Wild walnut, black lichen, Tetley’s, SCOBY, squid ink, dry pigments and acrylic on canvas
Clockwise from left side:
101.6 × 151.1 × 119.4 × 111.8 cm
Clockwise from left side:
40 × 59 1/2 × 47 × 44 inches

Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd
The Sting, 2018

Lucy Dodd
The Sting, 2018
Wild walnut, cochineal, azurite, squid ink, and acrylic on canvas
119.4 × 158.8 cm
47 × 62 1/2 inches

Details
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
Holy Basil(ica), 2019
Holy Basil, yew berry, squid ink, hematite, avocado, black lichen, spirulina, cinnabar, malachite, green tea, black tea, tulip, epidote, green quartz, walnut, and acrylic on canvas; pigmented cotton on seven chair frames
459.7 × 640.1 × 472.4 cm
181 × 252 × 186 inches

Lucy Dodd
Holy Basil(ica), 2019
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
Holy Basil(ica), 2019
Holy Basil, yew berry, squid ink, hematite, avocado, black lichen, spirulina, cinnabar, malachite, green tea, black tea, tulip, epidote, green quartz, walnut, and acrylic on canvas; pigmented cotton on seven chair frames
459.7 × 640.1 × 472.4 cm
181 × 252 × 186 inches

Lucy Dodd
Holy Basil(ica), 2019
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
Miss Mars, 2018
Squid ink, hematite, onion skins, liquid smoke, avocado, SCOBY, Kremer’s English Red, iron oxide, dragon's blood, cochineal, azurite, cinnabar, phosphorescents, and acrylic on canvas
309.9 × 462.3 cm
122 × 182 inches

Lucy Dodd
Miss Mars, 2018
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
Miss Mars, 2018

Lucy Dodd
Miss Mars, 2018
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
Miss Mars, 2018 (detail)

Lucy Dodd
Miss Mars, 2018
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
The Blow, 2018
Tobacco, ash, cochineal, azurite, dry pigment, and acrylic paint on canvas
157.5 × 120.7 cm
62 × 47 1/2 inches

Lucy Dodd
The Blow, 2018
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
The Peaks of Mount Pubis, 2017
Cochineal, charcoal, hematite and pigment on canvas
152.4 × 152.4 cm
60 × 60 inches
154 × 154 cm (framed)
60 5/8 × 60 5/8 inches (framed)

Lucy Dodd
The Peaks of Mount Pubis, 2017
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
The Peaks of Mount Pubis, 2017 (detail)

Lucy Dodd
The Peaks of Mount Pubis, 2017
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
The Peaks of Mount Pubis, 2017 (detail)

Lucy Dodd
The Peaks of Mount Pubis, 2017
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
The Son, 2018
Onion skins, urine, pyramid yellow and cadmium on canvas
330.2 × 330.2 cm
130 × 130 inches

Lucy Dodd
The Son, 2018
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
The Son, 2018 (detail)

Lucy Dodd
The Son, 2018
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
The Son, 2018 (detail)

Lucy Dodd
The Son, 2018
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
Flight of the Windhorse, 2018
Wild walnut, squid ink, black lichen, SCOBY, dry pigments, and acrylic on canvas
Clockwise from left:
105.4 × 115.6 × 55.9 × 76.8 cm
Clockwise from left:
41 1/2 × 45 1/2 × 22 × 30 1/4 inches

Lucy Dodd
Flight of the Windhorse, 2018
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
Dragon Tales, 2018
Wild walnut, cochineal, dye on cotton rope and wrought iron frame
approx. 228.6 × 76.2 × 101.6 cm
approx. 90 × 30 × 40 inches

Lucy Dodd
Dragon Tales, 2018
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
Dragon Tales, 2018

Lucy Dodd
Dragon Tales, 2018
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
Dragon Tales, 2018

Lucy Dodd
Dragon Tales, 2018
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
Butterfly, 2017
Tetley’s, wild walnut, fermented amaranth leaves, squid ink, Foss leaf extract, Rio Tinto water, snow and ash, hematite, spirulina, Guernica earth, sumac, yerba mate, green tea, pomegranate, black lichen, cochineal, chai, tigers eye, Polar Seltzer, annato, SCOBY, and pigment on canvas
365.8 × 365.8 cm
144 × 144 inches

Lucy Dodd
Butterfly, 2017
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
Butterfly, 2017 (detail)

Lucy Dodd
Butterfly, 2017
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
Butterfly, 2017 (detail)

Lucy Dodd
Butterfly, 2017
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
The Hermit, 2018
Onion skins, black walnut, squid ink, hematite, azurite, cochineal, Dragon's Blood and pigments on canvas
282.4 × 285.8 cm
111 1/5 × 112 1/2 inches

Lucy Dodd
The Hermit, 2018
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
The Hermit, 2018 (detail)

Lucy Dodd
The Hermit, 2018
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
The Hermit, 2018 (detail)

Lucy Dodd
The Hermit, 2018
Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
The Hermit, 2018 (detail)

Lucy Dodd
The Hermit, 2018
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
Dance of the Fire Dragons, 2018
Wild walnut, black lichen, Tetley’s, SCOBY, squid ink, dry pigments and acrylic on canvas
Clockwise from left side:
101.6 × 151.1 × 119.4 × 111.8 cm
Clockwise from left side:
40 × 59 1/2 × 47 × 44 inches

Lucy Dodd
Dance of the Fire Dragons, 2018
Lucy Dodd

Lucy Dodd
The Sting, 2018
Wild walnut, cochineal, azurite, squid ink, and acrylic on canvas
119.4 × 158.8 cm
47 × 62 1/2 inches

Lucy Dodd
The Sting, 2018
Details
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Exhibitions at Sprüth Magers
Lucy Dodd

Sprüth Magers x Artadia

A Benefit Exhibition to Support the Next Generation of Artists
Thea Djordjadze, Lucy Dodd, Karen Kilimnik, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Pamela Rosenkranz, Analia Saban, Rosemarie Trockel
April 4–April 22, 2023
New York

Bringing together a group of outstanding female artists in an innovative and collaborative effort to support the next generation, Sprüth Magers is pleased to announce a benefit exhibition to raise funds for the non-profit organization Artadia. Through grantmaking, community-building and advocacy, Artadia strengthens the invaluable role visual artists play in our society.

The exhibition comprises influential contemporary voices across multiple generations, reflecting both the discourse on art, gender and power that is firmly embedded in Sprüth Magers’ history and its enduring support of pioneering female figures. Featured will be works by artists who are all part of the gallery’s dynamic roster, including Thea Djordjadze, Lucy Dodd, Karen Kilimnik, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Pamela Rosenkranz, Analia Saban and Rosemarie Trockel. All funds raised will go towards the impactful Artadia Awards program.

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Lucy Dodd
Heart Overture
February 2–March 12, 2022
Los Angeles

Sprüth Magers is thrilled to announce Heart Overture, an exhibition of new paintings by Lucy Dodd, the artist's first presentation at the Los Angeles gallery. This body of work marks a culmination of a seven-year cycle of paintings, as well as announces a new collaborative method of picture-making that has pushed her canvases into new aesthetic territories. Produced with myriad natural materials, Dodd's new paintings teem with life and movement, relaying moments of spontaneous fun, chaotic action and alchemical energy.

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Lucy Dodd
Lucy Dodd

Dreaming Mirrors Dreaming Screens
Theodora Allen, Slater Bradley, Lucy Dodd, Lizzie Fitch / Ryan Trecartin, Andy Hope 1930, Oliver Laric, Pew Die Pie, Jon Rafman, Pamela Rosenkranz, Sara VanDerBeek, Stan VanDerBeek, Lesley Vance, Andro Wekua
curated by Johannes Fricke Waldthausen / GOODROOM
January 29–April 2, 2016
Berlin

Bringing together the practice of thirteen international artists, the exhibition Dreaming Mirrors Dreaming Screens appeals to the intuitive mind and creativity beyond referential thinking. Departing from the artists' production, it navigates through narratives in the realm of surrealist animation, abstraction and subjects of new materialism embracing the logic of the internet.

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Press

Lucy Dodd: Sprüth Magers
Artforum International, article by Sherman Sam, February 2019

“Spirituality doesn’t want to be talked about. It runs away.”
Kaleidoscope, article by Ruba Katrib, Fall/Winter 2018/2019

“Lucy Dodd: Miss Mars” at Sprüth Magers
Modern Painters, article by Anya Harrison, September 2018

Lucy Dodd
Bomb, interview by Rashid Johnson, January 9, 2018

Lucy in the Sky
Blau, article by David Schreiber, May 2017

Biography

Lucy Dodd (*1981, New York) lives and works in Kingston, NY. She completed studies at Art Center College of Design, CA (2004), and Bard College, New York (2011). Selected solo shows include Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016); Power Station, Dallas (2016); Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2014) and Pro Choice, Vienna (2010). Recent group shows and performances include those at Sprüth Magers, Berlin (2016); Armada, Milan (2015); The Kitchen, New York (2015) with Sergei Tcherepnin; Church of Saint Luke and Saint Matthew, New York (2012).

Education
2011 MFA Bard College, New York
2004 BFA Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, CA
Performances
2015 'Maize Mantis', with Sergei Tcherepnin, The Kitchen, New York
2012 'Tropical Year Zero', Church of Saint Luke and Saint Matthew, New York
2011 'Fluxus Concert', Performa 11 with Sergei Tcherepnin, New York
2010 'Ron Don Nine And Three Quarters Long', Human Resources, Los Angeles
2009 'The Ripples and the Tides', Mildreds Lane, PA
2008 'Fire Place Ping Pong', Christine Nichols, Venice
2008 'Chocolate Lady', Silver Platter, Los Angeles
2008 'Tortoise Shell' with Sylvere Lotringer, Tiny Creatures, Los Angeles
2008 'BirdaParadise', The Bounty, Los Angeles
2008 'Mallet Squash', Kreiiling &, Los Angeles
2007 'TightLoose', Mandrake, Los Angeles
2007 'Pole to Bar and Back Again', Condesa Hotel, MACO, Mexico City
2006 'Cake Ninja', Marvimon, Los Angeles
2006 'Chowchilla Pow Wow, and Transcontinental Nomadenoases', MACO, Mexico City
2005 'Macrame Cabaret' with Jason Rhoades, Mapa Teatro, Bogota
2005 '100 Coconuts No Machete', Transcontinental Nomadenoases, Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami
2005 'Island Plastic', Placencia
2005 'Sheep Fat Dancing', Maxims, Paris
2005 'Sheep plug White Ape Installation' with Jason Rhoades and Silverbridge Dionysiac, Centre Pompidou, Paris
2005 'Indiana O’Keefe', The Palms, Wonder Valley, CA
2004 'Homeopathic Nurse', 40 Deuce, Los Angeles
2004 'Raymond Incident', Art Center Graduate Studios, Pasadena, CA
2004 'SnowFlake Band' with Yutaka Sone, Centre Pompidou, Paris
2004 'SnowFlake Band' with Yutaka Sone, Bowie Van Vallen, Amsterdam
2004 'SnowFlake Band' with Yutaka Sone, Bar America, Guadalajara
2004 'SnowFlake Band' with Yutaka Sone, Pink Pony, New York
2004 'SnowFlake Band' with Yutaka Sone, Spaceland, Los Angeles
Public Collections
Aïshti Foundation, Beirut
Rubell Museum, Miami
Rachofsky Collection, The Warehouse, Dallas, TX
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Sammlung Goetz, Munich
UBS Art Collection, Zurich
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York