Philip Martin Gallery is delighted to present, “Newfoundland and Back," an exhibition of new easel paintings by Tomory Dodge. The exhibition features works painted on-site in Los Angeles, Newfoundland, Saratoga Springs and the California mountains.
Inspired in part by Matisse, Tomory Dodge's paintings of interiors take the vantage point of an individual engrossed in examining the domestic objects around them, while at the same time looking at the scene outside. Matisse opens doors - and windows - for artists and viewers. Writing about one such work, "Open Window" (1905), now in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, one writer suggests that, "The vista may look out to a small French fishing port—but, really, this window opens on the future of painting in the twentieth century," going on to note that, "The Fauves liberated color from any requirements other than those posed by the painting itself. 'When I put a green,' Matisse would say, 'it is not grass. When I put a blue, it is not the sky.' Art exerted its own reality. Color was a tool of the painter's artistic intention and expression, un-circumscribed by imitation. Matisse’s imperative was to 'interpret nature and submit it to the spirit of the picture.'" Like Matisse, Dodge's paintings exert their own reality, walking a fine line between vision and making, reminding us of the power of our own vision.
Tomory DODGE (b. 1974, Denver, CO) received his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI) and his MFA from California Institute of the Arts (Valencia, CA) in 2004. Tomory Dodge's work was recently the subject of the solo exhibition, "Hair Into Gold and Back Again," at Philip Martin Gallery. Recent solo exhibitions include Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); Miles McEnery Gallery (New York, NY); LUX Art Institute (Encinitas, CA); "Stranger Than Paradise," Rhode Island School of Design Museum (Providence, RI); "Grafforists," Torrance Art Museum (Torrance, CA); "Nowism," Pizzuti Collection (Columbus, OH); "An Appetite For Painting," National Museum (Oslo, Norway); "Pouring It On," Herter Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts (Amherst, MA); "Tomory Dodge and Denise Thomasos: Directions to a Dirty Place," Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (Winston-Salem, NC); "Future Tense: Reshaping the Landscape," Neuberger Museum of Art (Purchase, NY); "American Soil," Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS); "Sheldon Survey," Sheldon Memorial Gallery, University of Nebraska (Lincoln, NE). His work is in the collections of such museums as Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA); Orange County Museum of Art (Newport Beach, CA); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, (San Francisco, CA); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley, CA); Henry Art Gallery (Seattle, WA); Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, TX); Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS); Weisman Art Museum (Minneapolis, MN); Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, MN); Orlando Museum of Art (Orlando, FL); Knoxville Museum of Art (Knoxville, TN); Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (Birmingham, AL); Weatherspoon Art Museum (Greensboro, NC); Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC); RISD Museum, Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI); Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, CT); and Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY). Dodge's work is the subject of several monographic catalogs and has been discussed in such publications as Artforum, Flash Art, Modern Painters, Art Review, Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. Dodge lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
“Newfoundland and Back," is on view August 10 - September 14, 2024, with an opening for the artist Saturday, August 10 from 5-8 pm.
Philip Martin Gallery is open Wednesday-Saturday 11-5 and Tuesdays by appointment. The gallery is located at 3342 Verdugo Road, Los Angeles CA 90065. For additional images and information please call 323-507-2037 or email info@philipmartingallery.com.
Tomory Dodge's easel pictures are done from direct observation. Observed light - and therefore observed color - shape these paintings. The sun lights up a Los Angeles hillside, filters through a window, and strikes the petals of a flower with intensity reminiscent of Camille Corot's famous 1820s paintings of the Roman Campagna. At the same time, in these pieces, as in all of Tomory Dodge’s works, we feel the play of the flatness of the picture plane against the alluring depth of painterly space.
"The question of representation has always held a central place in my work," Dodge notes, commenting that not only landscape and abstraction, but also still-life and abstraction, and portraiture and abstraction, are all aspects of his artistic practice. In an image of Saratoga Springs, New York, the rain falls in a screen of brushstrokes that both alludes to the painting itself and what it depicts - the gentle delineation of the meadows and woods we see before our eyes. In Tomory Dodge’s Newfoundland pictures - done while on a one-month visit to the Canadian province - the wild Atlantic Canadian coast, with its beaches and ocean-side communities, is captured in rows of horizontal strokes.
Inspired in part by Matisse, Tomory Dodge's paintings of interiors take the vantage point of an individual engrossed in examining the domestic objects around them, while at the same time looking at the scene outside. Matisse opens doors - and windows - for artists and viewers. Writing about one such work, "Open Window" (1905), now in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, one writer suggests that, "The vista may look out to a small French fishing port—but, really, this window opens on the future of painting in the twentieth century," going on to note that, "The Fauves liberated color from any requirements other than those posed by the painting itself. 'When I put a green,' Matisse would say, 'it is not grass. When I put a blue, it is not the sky.' Art exerted its own reality. Color was a tool of the painter's artistic intention and expression, un-circumscribed by imitation. Matisse’s imperative was to 'interpret nature and submit it to the spirit of the picture.'" Like Matisse, Dodge's paintings exert their own reality, walking a fine line between vision and making, reminding us of the power of our own vision.
Tomory DODGE (b. 1974, Denver, CO) received his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI) and his MFA from California Institute of the Arts (Valencia, CA) in 2004. Tomory Dodge's work was recently the subject of the solo exhibition, "Hair Into Gold and Back Again," at Philip Martin Gallery. Recent solo exhibitions include Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); Miles McEnery Gallery (New York, NY); LUX Art Institute (Encinitas, CA); "Stranger Than Paradise," Rhode Island School of Design Museum (Providence, RI); "Grafforists," Torrance Art Museum (Torrance, CA); "Nowism," Pizzuti Collection (Columbus, OH); "An Appetite For Painting," National Museum (Oslo, Norway); "Pouring It On," Herter Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts (Amherst, MA); "Tomory Dodge and Denise Thomasos: Directions to a Dirty Place," Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (Winston-Salem, NC); "Future Tense: Reshaping the Landscape," Neuberger Museum of Art (Purchase, NY); "American Soil," Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS); "Sheldon Survey," Sheldon Memorial Gallery, University of Nebraska (Lincoln, NE). His work is in the collections of such museums as Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA); Orange County Museum of Art (Newport Beach, CA); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, (San Francisco, CA); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (Berkeley, CA); Henry Art Gallery (Seattle, WA); Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, TX); Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS); Weisman Art Museum (Minneapolis, MN); Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, MN); Orlando Museum of Art (Orlando, FL); Knoxville Museum of Art (Knoxville, TN); Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (Birmingham, AL); Weatherspoon Art Museum (Greensboro, NC); Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC); RISD Museum, Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI); Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, CT); and Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY). Dodge's work is the subject of several monographic catalogs and has been discussed in such publications as Artforum, Flash Art, Modern Painters, Art Review, Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. Dodge lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
“Newfoundland and Back," is on view August 10 - September 14, 2024, with an opening for the artist Saturday, August 10 from 5-8 pm.
Philip Martin Gallery is open Wednesday-Saturday 11-5 and Tuesdays by appointment. The gallery is located at 3342 Verdugo Road, Los Angeles CA 90065. For additional images and information please call 323-507-2037 or email info@philipmartingallery.com.
