post-title Lucy Dodd | The Return: Works from the North Sea | Sprüth Magers Berlin | 12.02.-05.04.2025

Lucy Dodd | The Return: Works from the North Sea | Sprüth Magers Berlin | 12.02.-05.04.2025

Lucy Dodd | The Return: Works from the North Sea | Sprüth Magers Berlin | 12.02.-05.04.2025

Lucy Dodd | The Return: Works from the North Sea | Sprüth Magers Berlin | 12.02.-05.04.2025

until 05.04. | #4582ARTatBerlin | Sprüth Magers Berlin presents from 12th February 2025 (Vernissage: 11.02.) the exhibition The Return: Works from the North Sea by the artist Lucy Dodd.

Lucy Dodd’s new paintings mobilise material, colour and shape to explore both personal and universal roots and ruptures. The two-part exhibition In Between Worlds reflects Dodd’s recent move from upstate New York to the Scottish countryside. It features paintings and found sculpture that examine the mythological and historical ties between the two places. Using unconventional pigments derived from nature and her immediate surroundings, Dodd traces the passage of time and an energetic shift that is echoed in the colours and spirit of the frenetic, at times large-scale, landscapes composed of painted spills, drops and stains. Working outdoors during the American autumn and later in the Scottish spring, the artist produced two cathartic groups of works that are a true display of place, time and setting. Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers are pleased to present the latter part of the cycle of works at the Berlin gallery. The solo show follows its counterpart, The End, staged at The Ranch, Montauk, from November 9 to December 20, 2024.

Dodd employs a semiotic approach to colour, where each hue serves as a powerful symbol within compositions that vary in character but are bound by a cohesive narrative. The American artist of English and Scottish descent uses woad, a plant native to the UK, as a starting point for the group of works shown in The End, which closes decades of living and working in the US. The historical source of blue dye is thought to have been used by the Picts—an ancient people who populated parts of Scotland and whose name possibly stems from the Latin picti, or “painted ones”—as body paint in their battles for independence from the Northumbrians. Characterised by the extracted pigment that dried to a grey-blue shade on Dodd’s surfaces, this longstanding connection to autonomy pervades her canvases. The works all exhibit seemingly spontaneous mark-making, contrasted by tidily sewn canvas edges; a balance of control and the relinquishing of it that can also be found in the pale brown imprints of oak leaves and pine needles created by rain, frost and sunshine, which are complemented by the shrewd application of brighter tones made from berries, Skittles and Starburst sweets.

Installed upright among the painted works in both shows, the colossal sculpture Earth’s Walk (2024) is a tree trunk Dodd found in the forest surrounding her former US studio. Felling the tree that was split at the base and naturally grew to resemble a pair of legs was not taken lightly and was carried out only after consulting with the Indigenous people of the land. With its severed limbs, it symbolises profound injury, disconnection and an uprooted family history, while also tapping into the Scottish myths of the Cailleach, an ambiguous giantess associated with the seasons and shaping the land. The anthropomorphised tree acts as a bridge between the two shows, having made the pilgrimage from Long Island across the Atlantic Ocean to Berlin.

The body of work on view at Sprüth Magers is anchored in Dodd’s choice of bluish-green copper ink, denoting the colour of the North Sea and an American icon of independence, the Statue of Liberty. Traces of yellow are achieved with a gorse flower essence, a diluted infusion prepared from a spiny yellow-flowered plant that has traditionally been used as a remedy for hopelessness and to ignite willpower. Together, the works, which are inherently of the earth, provide a reflection on the cyclical nature of life and history. Ushering in a new phase in Dodd’s oeuvre, they evoke a sense of evolution born from boundless freedom. Captured in arrangements that radiate alchemical zeal and bursts of optimism, these auratic paintings offer a balm for our turbulent times.

Lucy Dodd (*1981, New York) lives and works in Scotland. She completed studies at Art Center College of Design, CA (2004), and Bard College, New York (2011). Selected solo shows include Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles (2022), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016), Power Station, Dallas (2016), Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2014), and Pro Choice, Vienna (2010). Recent group shows and performances include those at Sprüth Magers, Berlin (2016), Armada, Milan (2015), The Kitchen, New York (2015) with Sergei Tcherepnin, and Church of Saint Luke and Saint Matthew, New York (2012).

Vernissage: Tuesday, 11 February 2025, 6 – 8 pm

Exhibition dates: Wednesday, 12 February – Saturday, 05 April 2025

To the Gallery

 

 

Image Caption: Photo: Lucy Dodd

Exhibition Lucy Dodd – Sprüth Magers Berlin | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Ausstellungen Galerien Berlin | ART at Berlin

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