TOMORY DODGE

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MILES McENERY GALLERY is delighted to announce an exhibition of recent work by Tomory Dodge, on view 9 September through 16 October 2021 at 525 West 22nd Street. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring an essay by Terry R. Myers.

Driven by an investigation of form, Tomory Dodge’s energetically worked canvases explore the physicality of paint as well as the physical act of painting. In his most recent body of work, Dodge continues in a play of painterly application by building, disposing, and transforming layers of thick oil paint with fluid brushstrokes. Terry R. Myers elaborates, “These newest paintings strongly suggest a sophisticated coming to terms with their potential for multiplicity and freedom, while remaining committed to some of the most tried-and-true, even intrinsic, components of painting, which remains a unique enterprise.”

Populated by irregular shapes and clashing planes, the paintings are dynamic, liminal, and constantly in flux. Layers of rectilinear strips and hazy passages of paint are punctuated by fields of dots and patches of designs, creating a coalescence of color and pattern. Whether fluid, rhythmic, anchored, or entangled, formsemerge in various compositions to activate the canvas. Myers continues, “In the case of Horns, the body of the painting may be more diffuse than the one in Wild Fox Body, almost slipping in and out of focus despite the all-over distribution of Dodge’s signature multi-colored zig-zag pattern.”

In the moments between discovery and arrival, Dodge assumes a what-if mindset as he works within the arena of the canvas. He allocates particular attention to a wide range of surface effects with the paint, while also understanding the paint itself insists on its own overall surface. Following instincts of uncertainty and fascination, Dodge seeks to discover a painting within a painting, to arrive at his final outcome.

TOMORY DODGE (b. 1974 in Denver, CO) received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1998 from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI, and his Master of Fine Arts degree in 2004 from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA. He also completed the Rhode Island School of Design European Honors Program in Rome, Italy in 1997.

Recent solo exhibitions include Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Lux Art Institute, Encinitas, CA; Cherry and Martin; CRG Gallery, New York, NY; Inman Gallery, Houston, TX; ACME., Los Angeles, CA; Alison Jacques, London, United Kingdom; and Monica De Cardenas Galleria, Zuoz, Switzerland.

Recent group exhibitions include “Do You Think it Needs a Cloud,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; “The Vista,” Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, LA; “Yin/Yang,” O-O LA, Los Angeles, CA; “Belief in Giants,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; “Color & Pattern,” Pivot Art + Culture, Seattle, WA; “Stranger Than Paradise,” Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI; “Tom Friedman (+The Birthday Show),” 1969 Gallery, New York, NY; “Passage,” ACME., Los Angeles, CA; “I’ll Not Be In Your Damn Ledger,” CRG Gallery, New York, NY; “Grafforists,” Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA; “Cult of Color,” Circuit 12, Dallas, TX; “Lost in a Sea of Red,” The Pit, Glendale, CA; “One Foot on the Ground,” James Harris Gallery, Seattle, WA; “Mona,” 68 Projects, Berlin, Germany; “Remains,” Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA; “An Appetite for Painting,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark; “NOW-ISM: Abstraction Today,” Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH; “An Appetite for Painting, National Museum of Contemporary Art,” Oslo, Norway; “Painters’ Painters,” Saatchi Gallery, London, United Kingdom; “INCOGNITO 10,” Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA; “20 Years of ACME.,” ACME., Los Angeles, CA; “Odd Harmonics,” Judith Charles Gallery, New York, NY; “Tomory Dodge & Denyse Thomasos: Directions to a Dirty Place,” Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC; “Pulp2,” Beta Pictoris Gallery, Maus Contemporary, Birmingham, AL; “To Live and Paint in LA,” Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA; and “Chasm of the Supernova,” Center for the Arts Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, CA.

His work is included in the permanent collections of Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, KS; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL; Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH; RISD Museum, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; USC Fisher Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Greensboro, NC; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT.

Dodge lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.

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525 West 22nd Street

9 September - 16 October 2021

Selected Works

Press Release