Artist Statement

Creating art has been part of my life since childhood.  I graduated from college in advertising desing and while following that career I also completd commissioned illustrations, portraits and landscapes.  Painting in the classical tradition, I began with a well planned under-painting, but this method was failing to hold my interest.

In 2001, I expanded on an abstract figurative style that was first given substance in the 1970’s.  The reason I say this, is that in college and throughout my life, I created small sketches (2” x 2”) of figures within boxes when I was compelled to draw.  Always intrigued by the human experience, the content of these sketches reflected my interest in confinement as it related to social relationships and to self-imposed barriers.  These small works made the leap to large scale in 2001 during a professional advanced art study program.  I was challenged to take the small drawings that I called doodles, and make them big and make them mine.

The resulting paintings, created in response to life’s continuum of flux, provide a final image that is a direct result of allowing flux to occur as part of the creative process.  I no longer begin with small sketches or specific plans.  I create a toned ground on the canvas.  Then I visualize a gender-neutral figurative form within the toned surface and develop it by defining negative and positive shapes with line or glazes of color.  These shapes are then a catalyst for additional mark and shape making.  I veil and reveal, scratch and glaze until the whole surface is in flux.  The geometric and organic forms map a journey through which the viewer sojourns.  The initially defined figure may remain in part or may be totally veiled, depending on where the painting is resolved.  My interest in human activity has added structural content to my most recent works.  The addition of various prefabricated materials, such as cables and metal, give another dimension to the implied space within my paintings.  Man-made construction materials create texture and refer to man’s quest to adapt to and manipulate both natural and built environments.  My art images hover between our external world and our internal selves, and reflect a multitude of experiences and emotions, both past and present, both personal and universal, where all elements are conjoined and move concurrently.  As in life the forms, both static and dynamic, and the lines, both rhythmic and chaotic, fully integrate within the environment.

My interest in social behavior has moved beyond the canvas to include experiments in connecting to individuals through the internet, previously known and unknown to myself, in order to fulfill an artistic vision.  The 2007 project “Art In The Sunshine” exposes a subtle and informal protest against the placement of temporary commercial signs along roadways.  Self enlisted artists transformed these illegally placed signs into art objects and reinstalled them along the roads legally.  I am currently researching and developing another project that includes cultural connections and social intervention.

• Margaret Schnebly Hodge •