Alexandre is pleased to announce an upcoming exhibition that delves into the poetic artistry of the revered painter Lois Dodd. Titled “Outside In,” this exhibition will invite viewers to immerse themselves in Dodd’s intimate world with panels of subjects captured from within the confines of her homes in rural Maine and the Delaware Water Gap.
Known for her ability to unveil the extraordinary in the ordinary, Dodd’s work serves as a visual hymn to the essence of nature. Dodd’s paintings are characterized by her remark- able ability to distill complex scenes into their essential geometric elements with bold colors and confident, swift brushstrokes. Her use of light and shadow lend her paintings a masterful balance between realism and abstraction, giving viewers specificity with as little paint as possible. “Usually, my subject is something I see repeatedly and know in different lights—morning, afternoon, or night light,” shares Dodd. “We live in nature and are a part of it: paint is my preferred means of celebrating nature.”
In “Outside In,” Dodd’s windows become portals to the ever-changing world, with views of the exterior landscape—including architecture, trees, and plants—captured in her signature simplicity. The exhibition also includes intricate plant studies, where leaves, flowers, bark, and twigs are not merely subjects but conduits for Dodd’s exploration of the natural world. These works offer a fascinating interplay between the external environment and the artist’s interior space, as plant life finds a new context within Dodd’s studio. At once familiar and renewed, these panels reveal the deep connection Dodd possesses to her immediate surroundings. “Lois Dodd doesn’t do drama,” says Washington Post art critic Sebastian Smee. “She paints, instead, stillness and silence, always in a stripped-back style notable for its acute perceptiveness and absence of fussiness.”
Lois Dodd (b. Montclair, New Jersey, 1927) has dedicated over seven decades to capturing her immediate surroundings at home in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, rural Mid-Coast Maine, and the Delaware Water Gap. Lois Dodd studied at the Cooper Union in the late 1940s. She was one of the five founding members of the legendary Tanager Gallery, among the first artist-run cooperative galleries in New York, and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Academy. Since 1954, her work has been the subject of over seventy one-person exhibitions. Her small, intimate paintings are typically completed in a single plein-air sitting, featuring varied subjects like New England outbuildings, vibrant summer gardens, dried plants, moonlit skies, and interior window views. Dodd revisits familiar motifs throughout the year, yielding dramatically different results. As Lucy R. Lippard emphasizes, Dodd’s paintings are “like small poems composed with deceptively simple words,” resonating with viewers long after the initial encounter.
“Outside In” will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with a new essay by independent curator Suzette MacAvoy.
