Jim Hodges (artist)
| Jim Hodges | |
|---|---|
| Born |
October 16, 1957 Spokane, Washington |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Sculpture |
| Notable work | "Don't Be Afraid", "look and see" |
Jim Hodges (born October 16, 1957) is a New York-based installation artist. Hodges is known for his multi-media sculptures and collages that involves delicate artificial flowers, mirrors, chains as spiderwebs, and cut up jeans etc.
Hodges, born in Spokane, Washington, received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Fort Wright College in 1980. He received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY in 1986. That same year, he met a collector named Elaine Dannheisser, who gave Hodges a studio in the basement of her foundation on Duane Street in exchange for working as a part-time art handler. He had also abandoned his original medium painting and started exploring materiality. This moment became his first major artistic crisis because he had realized that his concepts weren't connecting with his paintings.
Around four years after living in Dannheisser's basement, his art took a fall. Only prioritizing three days a week dedicated to making art, he eventually became poor, unstable, and lived in his studio illegally until Dannheisser kicked him out. However, his career picked itself back up after he became sober, which led to a piece called Flesh Suspense (1989-1990).
Since the late 1980s, Hodges has created a broad range of work exploring themes of fragility, temporality, love and death utilizing an original and poetic vocabulary. His works frequently deploy different materials and techniques, from ready-made objects to more traditional media, such as metal chains, artificial flowers, gold leaf and mirrored elements. Charting both the overlooked and obvious touchstones of life with equal attention and poignancy, Hodges’ conceptual practice reflects on the presence of the human experience and the idea of life and death.
Hodges had also challenged the limits of feminine materials and craft by expanding the possibilities of these materials through his own poetic sensibilities. As seen in works such as "With the Wind" (1997) and "You" (1997), he consistently incorporated embroidery to magnify notions of domesticity, a mother's presence, and early notions of femininity.
Originally influenced by the woods he grew up with in Spokane, Washington, nature plays an reoccurring role throughout his works. Throughout the years of 1987-1991, he had struggled to develop a theme within his works that expresses his role as an artist. His use of color had also disappeared during this period. Afterwards, he had gradually developed a process of creation through destruction.
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