Jim Hodges
New Work

June 3–July 31, 2010

Opening reception Thursday, June 3, 2010 from 6–8

Gallery hours:
Tuesday–Friday, 10–6
Saturday, noon–6

Dieu Donné announces the opening of an exhibition of new works in handmade paper by artist Jim Hodges, beginning Thursday, June 3, 2010 and running through Saturday, July 31, 2010. The opening reception will take place on Thursday, June 3, 2010 from 6–8 pm and the artist will be present.

Hodges is widely known for investigations into the materiality of his art–his own exploration and conceptual use of a chosen media, both everyday and exotic. In this exhibition, the artist continues his investigation of a familiar medium that has often captured his attention–paper. Hodges’s return to Dieu Donné is his first since his 2002 Lab Grant residency, which was the artist’s introduction to hand papermaking, during which he created drawings from richly colored paper pulp.

In this new body of unique works, Hodges exploits the material qualities of paper through sculpture. By cutting, folding, and at times working into the wet stages of the papermaking process, Hodges exposes the luxe organic elements of paper. In Creep, 2009, the artist creates a branch-like form projecting from the right side of a seductively watermarked sheet of paper. The composition of the work presents a life size frame revealing a limbed figure of nature, possibly seen as an anthropomorphized form beginning to grow.

In Pulp, 2010 thickly cast paper chains hang from flesh-toned patches (incorporating mineral based make-up) on a wood grain surface. The work presents oppositional forces. Loosely hung chains suggest containment and restraint while simultaneously, a background of dark, rich, veined paper references a living form. Man’s relationship to nature compels the artist to inform these materials with a powerful corporeal effect.

About the artist: Jim Hodges (b. 1957, Spokane, Washington) lives and works in New York City. This exhibition at Dieu Donné follows the artist’s October 2009 solo exhibition “Love, Etc,” at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which traveled to the Fondazione Bevilacqua in Venice, and will be at the Camden Arts Center in London in June of 2010. The artist is represented by Barbara Gladstone Gallery, Stephen Friedman Gallery, and Anthony Meier Fine Art. Hodges work is featured in permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. and the Tate in London, among others.

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