May 2014: A Limitless Existence

The Harrison Center for the Arts and Financial Center Federal Credit Union are proud to present a limitless existence– new work by Susan Hodgin in the Harrison Gallery. Hodgin, an Indianapolis native and HCA studio artist, received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Montana, Missoula and her MFA in Painting from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.  Her work is collected and shown across the country. From the artist’s website:

Exploration, expedition, and the discovery of the new is important in my work.  It is in new places that I discover new emotional territories.  It is the memory of place that I bring into the studio to create my paintings . . . My paintings are not landscapes but are maps of my experience in a landscape.  I build up the surface of my canvases like time builds up the surface of the Earth. I paint images, symbols, and brushstrokes. These layers are randomly placed without regard to the next layer. They can only respond to past and present, and have no notion of how they will affect the future. I draw lines into the terra of the painting. I create forms. I create elevations, and I create texture. I create scars. These lines respond to the surface beneath them. The painting ends sometimes with the oil paint and the oil pastels, but in its dialogue with the past/previous layers, it will take the painting into a full cycle. A prehistoric red will show through to the surface, charcoal dust will tint a white field, and a smooth, matte area will reveal the texture of the surface like a scar on the canvas. Black circles will show through a transparent area of the oil paint like an ancient sacred ritual-place abandoned long ago. Our natural landscapes are rapidly changing and diminishing, and our connection to them is weakening. My paintings are an attempt to map, chart, and record my reactions to nature, both near and far.