DONNA DODSON: Match of the Matriarchs and other Amazonomachies

Monday, April 22, 2024

Match of the Matriarchs and other Amazonomachies

Match of the Matriarchs and other Amazonomachies by Donna Dodson is the first solo exhibition by a female artist hosted by the World Chess Hall of Fame (WCHOF). Match of the Matriarchs centers on women’s stories, women’s lives, and women's place in the history of chess. It includes the world's first and only monumental, life-sized chess set, which contains 32-large scale wooden sculptures representing all-female representations of cephalopods battling cetaceans.

The exhibition also showcases eight additional “Amazon” sculptures from her "Sheroes" series depicting historical, literary, and mythological female heroes such as Mulan and Black Panther; a minotaur; Tomyris, a queen of Turkey; references to a Dodson's great aunt; Cybele; and Lakshmibai, a queen of India.

Debuting in the exhibition is The Madwoman of Chess or Autonomous was a Woman, which was commissioned by the World Chess Hall of Fame and will be part of the museum’s permanent collection. This dynamic and powerful sculpture harkens back to the backlash received when there was a major change to the rules of chess— the queen transformed from a piece with limited movement to one that combined the powers of the bishop and the rook. Some called this new version of the ancient game “madwoman’s chess.”

The catalog that accompanies the exhibition features essays by Shannon Bailey (Chief Curator of the WCHOF), Cate McQuaid (Boston Globe art critic), Dr Kurt Steinberg (COO at Peabody Essex Museum) and Jennifer Shahade (World champion chess and poker player). Links to my interviews with Woman Grand Master Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova, and video tours of the exhibition with Chief Curator Shannon Bailey can be found on my website.

Mini Match of the Matriarchs, 2024 by Donna Dodson. Chess set box design and fabrication by Peter Breu. 3d scanning courtesy of Sean O’Reilly, 3D Printsmith. 3d printing courtesy of Jason Enos, Empire Group

The opening was packed and it featured a Spotify playlist, temporary tattoos, a signature cocktail "The Madwoman of Chess", posters, t-shirts and more... Check out all the amazing photos on the WCHOF flickr album.

Queen’s Gambit, Flashlight portrait in collaboration with Paul Weiner, 2024

Supplementing the displays of Dodson’s artwork are marine-related chess sets from the permanent collection of the WCHOF and loans from the distinguished group Chess Collectors International, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary as an organization in 2024. Also included will be videos of underwater sea creatures and places to play chess while learning about variants of the game of chess that are related to marine life and Amazons. 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) and that is the subject of the WCHOF concurrent show, Clash for the Crown: Celebrating Chess Champions which explores the histories of the World Chess Championship and Women’s World Chess Championship.

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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 Resident Scholar at the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center and a Visual Art Fellow at the St Botolph Club in Boston. Dodson’s recent show, “The Amazons Among Us” 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 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 a member of the Boston Sculptors Gallery, the nation’s only sculpture cooperative that maintains its own gallery space. Dodson is a graduate of Wellesley College. She enjoys public speaking, and has been a guest speaker at conferences throughout North America. Donna is a freelance writer whose articles in newspapers, magazines and blogs demonstrate the economic impact and global reach of the arts sector. Her recent paper, “What do we call courageous women” was presented at the Society for Classical Studies annual meeting in 2022 and is pending publication in a special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies, Queering the Amazons.

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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Monday, April 22, 2024

Match of the Matriarchs and other Amazonomachies

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