Sebastian Gladstone is elated to present a new group of paintings by Dustin Hodges from his ongoing Lepidoptera series. Presented in three scales, these new works expand upon his last exhibition, “Francine,” and further advance his investigations of perception, context, and art history through the medium of painting. Two major references serve as anchors for what Hodges describes as the “motor” of his paintings–the Odilon Redon painting “Papillons,” and a film still from the cartoon “Arthur.” These two images are used to create a range between the sublime and the banal from which Hodges paints an animation shown out of order; film stills flicker, band, and zoom in and out of focus.
The painting “Papillons” is dissected as the artist aims to reconstruct the image down to its essence–why it is such a compelling image for him, how was the painting made, what is its true meaning beyond the piles of rocks, the clouds and the butterflies. Similarly, in the scene taken from “Arthur,” Hodges splices the image to hone in on the expressions of the characters, the way in which they are rendered. In both instances, the artist strips the images of their context in order to manipulate and unpack their visual grammar, creating a new conceptual frame for the series which can only be fully understood as a whole. In one image, a pile of rocks slips across the canvas, flipping between three frames, and the nuance of the rocks is expanded as the layers become transparent, the background is darkened so one can focus on the rocks. The pile of rocks has been altered into its own being; the rocks become a figure moving through space, or even the artist's own consciousness.
With the film strip paintings Hodges allows himself a set of parameters to make paintings that are at once abstract and representational. The rules create the paradigm of a geometric abstraction, and the rock piles become non-representational in their removal from the context of the whole painting. Only when seeing one of the larger-scale works do we realize that it's a small part of a much larger symphony of landscapes, flowers, and characters–almost like a stage being set and undressed at the same time. In “Francine,” the characters have been removed from their setting and placed into a stark pink ether where a blurred outline of something potentially to come is slightly rendered, never to be fulfilled. This awkward space invites reflection on the nature of the images themselves and opens the imagination to the endless potential of the image.
Remnants of the paintings surround the characters but not enough to fully realize the vision of either original image. Perhaps this is done on purpose, and Hodges does not wish to instill some specific idea or feeling. Rather, he hopes the viewer will come along for the ride of the paintings, and create their own story–leaving with a little more than they showed up with. If the point of a painting is to create a visceral viewing experience that potentially reaches towards the sublime, Hodges is guiding towards that goal but not forcing anyone in a particular direction.