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Donna Dodson: Sheroes August 30 – October 1, 2023 @Boston Sculptors Gallery
Featuring special guests Trina Baker, K. Melchor Hall, Maya Rubio and Kledia Spiro
First Friday: Sept 1st, 5 – 8:30pm. Special performance, In the Heels Of by Kledia Spiro at 6pm
Artist’s Reception: Saturday, September 9, 3 –
5pm, with artist talks at 4pm
Roundtable Discussion Heroine
Herstories and Contemporary Visions: Sun, Sept 10 at 2pm
With Donna Dodson, Maya Rubio and Kledia Spiro. Co-moderated by Dr. Clareese Hill and Dr. Ali Terndrup. Join us for this virtual event on Zoom
As 2023 ushered in a new set of woes
for women including threats to health care, human rights and gender equality, artist
Dodson’s response was to create an army of Sheroes for her seventh solo
show at Boston Sculptors Gallery. Her most recent woodcarvings are inspired by
real life heroines – Hua Mulan, Tomyris, Beatrice Cenci and Caterina Sforza.
Dodson chose to collaborate with special
guests Trina Baker, K. Melchor Hall, Maya Rubio and Kledia Spiro because of
their shared commitment to social justice. Dodson, Baker, Hall, Rubio and Spiro
are united in their quest to create a new vision of women’s empowerment. Hall
responds to Dodson’s sculptures and themes of superheroines and vulnerability
with her prose poetry transformed into a digital soundtrack to accompany Maya
Rubio’s video, which highlights the process of creating collaborative
animations with Trina Baker. While Hall’s poems address the gendered contrasts
of strength and weakness, youthfulness and aging, as well as the protection of the
self and others in relationships, Baker’s animations present contemporary
visions of superheroines that challenge the stereotypical narratives of female
action figures.
In Spiro’s most recent body of work,
she considers the inheritance and upholding of her family’s legacy—one with
significant achievements—as a weighty responsibility. Being a woman adds
another layer of complexity, considering the historical challenges of
prescribed gender roles. Yet, the support and contributions of unseen heroines,
like Spiro’s mother and grandmother, play a crucial role in making such
legacies possible. Her family's legacy in Albania, rooted in the remarkable
work of her grandfather and father, became her foundation. Supported by the
efforts of her mother and grandmother, who defied societal norms, Spiro is
empowered to leave her own mark, creating a new reality, and continuing their
journey. In her performance Oozing, she stands on the shoulders of these
unseen heroes and heroines, carrying forward their aspirations and breaking barriers.
Their labor and sacrifices enable her to build her own legacy, step by step.
She embraces the weight, leaving traces of progress as she goes, constantly
evolving and opening up new possibilities for the future.
Trina
Baker currently Chairs the Animation Department at Lesley Art + Design.
Her paintings, drawings, and artist books have shown nationally and
internationally in galleries and corporate collections. Baker’s animations have
received numerous awards including a Pixie, honoring outstanding work in Motion
Graphics, Visual Effects and Animation, as well as two International CINDY
(Cinema in Industry) awards.
Donna
Dodson is a Resident Scholar at Brandeis University’s Women’s Studies
Research Center, a Fulbright US Scholar, a Fellow at the St. Botolph Club and a
member of the Boston Sculptors Gallery. She has exhibited her work, received
favorable reviews and won grants locally, nationally and internationally. Dodson’s
work is in numerous private and public collections locally, nationally and
internationally. Her well-known Seagull Cinderella sculpture attracts
international media attention.
K.
Melchor Quick Hall, PhD. is a Black feminist
scholar-activist crossing disciplinary and national borders. She is a Resident
Scholar at Brandeis University. Dr. Hall is the author of Naming a
Transnational Black Feminist Framework: Writing in Darkness, and
co-editor of Mapping Gendered Ecologies: Engaging with and beyond
Ecowomanism and Ecofeminism.
Maya Rubio is an independent curator and
editor at Boston Art Review. Her recent curatorial projects include What’s
the Secret? at Gallery 263 and M'Kenzy Cannon: Please Let Me In at
Boston Center for the Arts. Rubio has also worked on several exhibitions at
Emerson College, where she studied the business of creative enterprises and art
history.
Kledia
Spiro creates videos, performances, installations, and paintings. Born
in Albania, Kledia was a member of an Olympic weightlifting team. An
Sheroes Descriptions:
Beatrice Cenci for Harriet Hosmer, 31” tall, black walnut, 2023. Photo credit: Brian Wilson
Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908) was a renowned stone sculptor, ahead of her time. She grew up in Watertown, Mass. but lived in Rome most of her life. She often shied away from popular subjects in favor of more challenging ones. One of her major pieces is called Beatrice Cenci, for the Italian nobleman who, with her siblings and one of his wives, killed her abusive father, was tortured, and eventually beheaded. Beatrice Cenci has become a symbol to the people of Rome of resistance against the arrogant aristocracy. It is rumored that every year on the night before the anniversary of her death, she comes back to the St. Angelo Bridge where she was executed, carrying her severed head.
Blood Thirsty, 42” tall, cherry, enamel, 2023. Photo credit: Brian Wilson
Tomyris was the legendary Turkish Queen who killed Cyrus the Great. The story goes that she refused his hand in marriage, and he took revenge on her by ambushing and killing her husband and son. She went to war against him and out maneuvered him on the battlefield. She ordered her soldiers to bring her his severed head, which she dunked in a cask of blood, saying "Now you can have your fill of blood" since he was so bloodthirsty. My sculpture is a python headed woman, with a tattoo that says "No" in Persian. She wears the severed head of her enemy as a trophy around her neck like a piece of jewelry. Tomyris is a popular subject in art history. But there are not many contemporary visions of her.
Every Mother is a Warrior, 56” tall, black oak, enamel 2021. Photo credit: Brian Wilson
This
commissioned piece has not been exhibited before, but the owners want it to be
seen. My friend lost his mother recently. He told me that her
favorite bird was the red winged blackbird. He cut down this tree to build
a new addition on his family’s home where this sculpture now resides.
I took one look at the log and saw two figures- a large maternal figure and a small
girl child. I added painted wing patterns in the signature colors of the red
winged blackbird- red, yellow and black. He has since shared with me that his
mother was a warrior who battled mental health issues all her life. His kids
call the sculpture "Grandma."
Tomboy, 42” tall, honey locust, oil stain, enamel, 2023. Photo Credit: Brian Wilson
Hua
Mulan was the Chinese warrior who is said to have dutifully taken her father's
place in the army to preserve her family's honor. There is a famous quote
where she says, “The male and the female rabbit have physical differences but
when they are running side by side, you cannot tell them apart.” So I created
a rabbit headed female figure who is standing in shoes obviously too large for
her, covering her breasts, and she has a tattoo meant to symbolize being a tom boy.
The Madwoman of Chess or Autonomous Was a Woman, 37” tall, honey locust 2023. Photo credit: Brian Wilson
Caterina Sforza was an Italian noblewoman who lived life on her own terms. When one of her enemies surrounded her castle and threatened to kill her children she called their bluff by lifting her skirts, baring her genitals and saying "Go ahead, I have the means to make more!" She earned the nickname The Tigress of Forli. My sculpture is a full bodied figure with her mouth open, symbolizing a woman who is comfortable in her own skin, not subject to the male gaze.
Update: Cate McQuaid reviewd my show and Barbara Broughel's show "Requiem Portraits" at Krakow Witkin Gallery on Sept 24, 2023, Witchy women: Witch hunts, Sheroes, and the blessings of age.
James Foritano reviewed my show and Alison Croney Moses's show "The Habits Of Reframing" at Abigail Ogilvy Gallery on Sept 28, 2023 for Artscope Magazine, TWO GALLERIES, TWO TELLINGS, ONE HISTORY: THE WOODEN MARVELS OF DONNA DODSON AND ALISON CRONEY MOSES
