DONNA DODSON: Match of the Matriarchs

Friday, September 21, 2018

Match of the Matriarchs

The Cephalopods

Match of the Matriarchs: Donna Dodson

October 3- November 4, 2018 at the Boston Sculptors Gallery

Featuring guest artists Daniel Meirom, Jennifer Shahade & Kledia Spiro

First Friday Reception: October 5, 5-8pm

7pm "Battle of the Beasts" performance by Jennifer Shahade & Kledia Spiro

Second Sunday Concert: October 14, 4-6pm featuring Mazumal Duo

Reception and Artist Talks: Saturday, October 20, 3-5pm with Eric Sealine

First Friday Closing Reception: November 2, 5-8pm

7pm "Battle of the Beasts, Revisited" performance by Kledia Spiro

Boston Sculptors Gallery presents Match of the Matriarchs, Donna Dodson’s latest series of mysterious animal-human hybrid wood sculptures, on display October 3 through November 4, 2018. Featuring a sculpture group configured as a chess set, Dodson’s increasingly well-known female forms are carved with humor, sensitivity, and attention to the interplay of woodgrain and color.

Dodson cites the genesis of her chess set in her solo show at New Bedford Art Museum in 2016. She explained, “I created five ‘mermaids’ inspired by the history of ship prow carvings. I wanted to do more with the series, so I set myself the challenge of making an entire chess set.” This idea allowed her to build on the concept of sculptures that interact directly with each other, while reflecting on the interactions among species that have nothing to do with us humans.

Dodson delved into natural history books such as Squid Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods by Danna Staff, The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration on Consciousness by Sy Montgomery, and Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith. “The existence of squid was discovered due to the scars on the sides of whales,” Dodson noted. “This deep sea battle between the squid and the whale led me to create a team of cephalopods—octopus, squid and cuttlefish—battling against the cetaceans—orca, narwhal and elephant seal.”

To learn about the game of chess, Dodson researched Birth of the Chess Queen: A History by Marilyn Yalom and Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport by Jennifer Shahade. “The original chess set was composed of King, Vizier/General, and other male military figures,” Dodson explained. “The queen came onto the board around the same time that many powerful queens reigned in England, Russia and Spain.” Dodson reflected on that change, deciding, “My set is maternal—I am thinking about family matriarchies, the realm of power in women's lives, how women wield power and the bonds between women in families.”

The Cetaceans

Daniel Meirom is an Israeli-American filmmaker, visual artist, and new media producer. His projects include XChess, a web TV show about chess, Misery Loves Comedy, a pilot on stand-up comedians, and Nowhere Else, a TV drama for Israeli TV. His most recent film, Camden/Love/Hate tells the story of Camden, NJ through at risk high school students. He has exhibited in New York City, Saint Louis, and most recently, at the Dali Museum in St. Petersburgh, FL. For his Boston debut, Meirom collaborated with Jennifer Shahade to create new work.

Naked Chess

Jennifer Shahade is a two-time U.S. Women's Chess Champion, poker player, commentator and writer. She wrote Chess Bitch and Play Like a Girl, and co-authored Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Chess and Sinquefield Cup: Celebrating Five Years. Shahade is Senior Editor at uschess.org, MindSports Ambassador for PokerStars, and a board member of the World Chess Hall of Fame. In Match of the Matriarchs, Shahade will exhibit videos, photographs, and an interactive chessboard developed in collaboration with Daniel Meirom and Donna Dodson. Based on a 16th century misogynist chessboard created by a disgruntled gentleman when the Queen first appeared in the game, the new board uses misogynist language from online chess forums and social media, and invites audience engagement. Shahade will challenge an opponent to a chess match Friday, October 5 in a performance piece with Kledia Spiro.

Not Particularly Beautiful

Kledia Spiro creates videos, performances, installations, and paintings. Born in Albania, Kledia was a member of an Olympic weightlifting team. She uses weightlifting as a symbol of survival, empowerment, celebration, and as a vehicle for discussing women’s roles in society, immigration, and times of war. Spiro has exhibited nationally, most notably at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Queens Museum, NY; SAIC Sullivan Galleries, Chicago; Museum of Art, University of New Hampshire; and the ProArts Gallery in Oakland, CA. Her videos and photographs will be exhibited in Match of the Matriarchs. She will perform with Jennifer Shahade on Friday, October 5 at 7pm in “Battle of the Beasts” and again at the closing reception on Friday, November 2 at 7pm in “Battle of the Beasts, Revisited.”

Battle of the Beasts

Update: ArtYOP! covered this story, "Donna Dodson and the Match of the Matriarchs" on July 28, 2018. Sampan covered this story,"Match of the Matriarchs: Donna Dodson Oct. 3rd to Nov. 4th" on Sept 6, 2018. WBUR- The ARTery featured this story " 8 Feminist Art Shows to Check Out in New England this Fall" on September 28, 2018. US Chess Federation featured this story, "Women in Chess Events and Tournaments" on October 1, 2018. New England Diary covered this story, "Matriarchal is Mass. Gallery" on October 23, 2018. Sampan featured this story "Match of the Matriarchs Exhibition and Performance Nov 2nd" on October 23, 2018. Chessbase.com covered this story, "Match of the Matriarchs in Boston through Nov. 4th" on October 25, 2018 and the Denver Chess Club re-posted the article in their Chess news Feed.. Michael Charney captured a live chess game with his amazing photos on dropbox. Read a curatorial statement by me on the Boston Sculptors Gallery blog. Watch a video segment from Chanda Prescod Weinstein on vimeo "Match of the Matriarchs."

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Artist Statement

‘My artwork celebrates the mystical relationship between human beings and the animal kingdom. Because there were no icons of women in the church that I grew up in, my vision is to create them. Through hybrid female-animal forms that I sculpt in wood, I flesh out sensuality, sexuality and soul with a well-proportioned figurative vocabulary. The natural grain of the wood interacts with the form and shape of my sculptures in a descriptive way, suggesting nostrils, and nipples or garments and fabric textures. I often stylize each piece to enhance the girl, woman, princess, queen or goddess within. The mouths, or in some cases beaks, are closed symbolizing the mysteries they embody. These figures are sculpted in sizes ranging from the intimate to the monumental. I use color in both subtle and bold ways to activate each piece. My inspiration comes from ancient iconography and mythological imagery.’

About

Donna Dodson has been carving images out of wood for nearly 20 years. Her sculptures explore feminine beauty and evoke humor and playfulness but also grace, power and emotional strength. Her unique vision responds to the relation of animals to the human spirit that have existed since ancient times. Her figures are almost always female and range in size from the intimate to the monumental.

Dodson’s pre-med studies and her passion for Egyptian art led her to study wood and stone sculpture. African sculptures and Native American totems also influence her work.

She uses logs of osage orange wood from her grandfather’s farm in Illinois, and ash, cherry, locust and maple from New England.

Dodson has worked in a series using an elephant headed goddess to explore female figureheads in positions of power. Recently, Dodson created large scale outdoor pieces, engaging in a public dialogue about her work. The site became a more prevalent theme. Today, Dodson has returned to creating statement pieces such as a cardinal goddess for the women of the Catholic Church who aspire to be ordained and Madam President- a monument to the first female president of the USA.

Bio

Donna Dodson is an American sculptor who has exhibited her artwork around the world. Dodson has completed successful residencies in Verbier Switzerland, Cusco Peru, Keelung Taiwan and Ringkoebing Denmark. Donna is currently a Scholar at the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center and a Fellow at the St Botolph Club in Boston. Dodson’s recent show, “Sheroes” at the Boston Sculptors Gallery was met with critical acclaim. Donna was a 2022 Fulbright US Scholar at Q21/MuseumsQuartier in Vienna Austria working as an artist in residence with her host institution Tricky Women/Tricky Realities, the world’s only animation festival for women. Dodson has won grants from the Puffin Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New Hampshire Guild of Woodworkers and the George Sugarman Foundation. Her work is in the permanent collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame in St Louis Missouri, the Provincetown Art Museum, the Art Complex Museum and the Fuller Craft Museum in Massachusetts, The Noyes Art Museum in New Jersey and the Davistown Museum in Maine. Donna's work has been reviewed in the Boston Globe, Sculpture Magazine, The Daily Beast, Hyperallergic and Artnet. She is currently represented by the Abigail Ogilvy Gallery in Boston and Los Angeles. She is a former member of the Boston Sculptors Gallery. Dodson is a graduate of Wellesley College. Donna is a freelance writer whose articles in newspapers, magazines and blogs demonstrate the economic impact and global reach of the Boston arts sector. Her recent paper, “What do we call courageous women” was presented at the Society for Classical Studies annual meeting in 2022 and was published in Queering the Amazons a special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies.

Inspirations

"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

-Leonard Cohen

"... I think one's art goes only as far and as deep as [one's] love goes..."

-Andrew Wyeth

"art is valuable because it challenges, inspires, and enables us to see ourselves in much more interesting ways"
-Mickey Cartin

" the thing that I had to do was to ... work super hard in the hope that someday it would pay off. And in using that term I don't mean necessarily money, but just the fact that I would have more depth and dimension both as a human being and as an artist."
-Ed Paschke

“Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.”
-Steve Jobs

"...remember that collecting art is an act of love. It isn’t about what you pay for a work, or how rich (or not) you become when you one day sell it, but the depth of your enjoyment in the time you live with it."
-Abigail R. Esman

"[Patronage] is a gift, in the form of money, in exchange for [my] gift, in the form of music."

-Amanda Palmer

"Art is the crucial interface between the imagination and reality, the thing that makes life deeper and broader than what it might be without such insight."

-Todd Levin

"If they hadn't told me I was ugly, I would never have searched for my beauty."

-Gabourey Sidibe

"Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be."

-Clementine Paddleford

Great artists “must be shaken by the naked truths that will not be comforted. This divine discontent, this disequilibrium, this state of inner tension is the source of artistic energy.”

-Humphrey Trevelyan

"Life should be lived so vividly and intensely that thoughts of another life or of a longer life are not necessary."

-Marjory Stoneman Douglas

“When people say that poetry is a luxury, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language - and that is what poetry is.” Jeannette Winterson

Artistic Process

When I start a piece of work I need to evoke such a strong feeling about each piece that I can dare to listen to the piece, to make mistakes - to just create. It is the emotional investment in the act of creation that crystallizes the work for me.

Sometimes the idea or concept comes first, and I imagine what the piece will be when completed. More often I work from intuition. Once completed I see the intentions behind the piece, or the desire from which it is born. Artists who inspire me include Jessica Stockholder and Katharina Fritsch. Stockholder uses color as a transformational visual device, changing the way we see form. Fritsch creates sculptures of sacred figures that become pop-icons through her use of color. In the same way I work with various kinds and grains of wood accented by color.

My artwork is about self expression, autobiography, and self redemption. Each sculpture is independent and heroic, but each is connected to the body of my total work. Each is made greater and honored by its association with those that have preceded it, but keeps its own sacred identity. Each reflects my realization that I am a self-made woman.

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Friday, September 21, 2018

Match of the Matriarchs

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