In this new series of wall plates, Behind Closed Doors, I reimagine source imagery from a book titled In Praise of the Backside. The book’s collection features women from behind, as captured most often by men, frequently untitled and anonymous. In my reinterpretation of these images, the women transcend their status as objects of line and shade, to become subjects with emotion, thought, and a place of belonging.
Dreaming in Technicolor & Melancholy Remedy, 2023 Hand built plate Sculpture
Dreaming in Technicolor & Melancholy Remedy, 2023
From the Behind Closed Doors series
Hand-built plate with sgraffito and collaged transfers
Dimensions:
Overall size: 8.25 x 16.5 x 0.25 in.
Individual Size: 8.25 x 8.25 x 0.25 in.
Unique
Alex Hodge was always drawn to the arts and regularly channeled her creativity as a child whether in watercolor classes or scrapbooking with her mother. Hodge focuses on prioritizing women’s narratives in all aspects of her work. Through the decorative and symbolic details, she hints at narratives without completing them to invite the viewer to participate in creating meaning. The women she invents exist in the present but is of the imagined future in which we all have room to flourish, to tell our stories, to give and receive love, and to express the beauty and pain of the human condition. Fundamentally, her artworks are a celebration of the tenacity and vulnerability of women and clay, an interplay of history and hope.
