Philip Martin Gallery is proud to present, “Mirrors and Windows,” an exhibition of new paintings by Los Angeles-based artist Tomory Dodge. In his new works, Tomory Dodge uses color, shape, line and the materiality of paint itself to define a deep pictorial space of light and shadow that draws the viewer into the mental depth of the picture as well as into a consideration of the physical space in front of it.
In 1978, Museum of Modern Art photography curator John Szarkowski proposed the idea of “Mirrors and Windows.” In the essay for his landmark MoMA exhibition, Szarkowski suggested that two dimensional artworks could be windows offering a vista into imagined space. At the same time, however, two dimensional artworks can be mirrors that emphasize their physicality as objects and the materiality of their surfaces. These types of pictures reflect the viewer back into their own space - the space of the gallery itself - encouraging a phenomenological, non-optical experience of body and also one’s relation to the picture physically in front of oneself.
Writing on his own work, Tomory Dodge notes, “The space in the new paintings is of course an abstract space, but I feel that in many of the paintings it has its underpinnings in landscape. Most of the newer paintings began with a simple formal device of an elongated triangle intersecting a horizontal plane at the top of the canvas. To me, this is reminiscent of a road receding into the horizon, with obvious associations with ideas of freedom and transformation.”
Upon this initial perspectival composition, Tomory Dodge applies layers of paint. He finds color, shape, line and texture working directly with a brush and indirectly with a scraping tool, the dragging force of which reveals previously applied layers. Tomory Dodge’s works have an intense energy that at times can remind the viewer of Action Painting. At the same time, his paintings subtly work their way through carefully considered Modernist space with an eye to Braque, Picasso and Matisse, their explorations of perspective, and the upending of perspective through drawn cues and color relations.
Tomory Dodge writes, “Sometimes hints of the initial formal device remain; other times it is all but gone. The paintings take on an abstracted figure/ground kind of space, or even an interior kind of space. The initial receding space lays the groundwork for all of this.” The playful back-and-forth between Dodge’s initial perspectival layers and later ones built through layers of brightly colored painting and scraping reveals a sense in these works of both mirror and window, allowing us to dream an exploratory depicted space; to consider how we stand in relation to that space; and to think about the landscapes of our interiority.
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 recent and upcoming solo and group 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); “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); and Sheldon Memorial Gallery, University of Nebraska (Lincoln, NE). Dodge’s 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.
Tomory Dodge’s exhibition, “Mirrors and Windows” is online March 27 - April 10, 2025. All works may be viewed at the gallery on request. Philip Martin Gallery is open Wednesday - Saturday from 11-5, and by appointment.
For additional images, or information please email info@philipmartingallery.com, or call 323-507-2037. Philip Martin Gallery is located at 3342 Verdugo Road, Los Angeles, CA 90065 in the Glassell Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.
