Flying in Outer Space
Artist:
Dorothy Hood
(American, 1918 - 2000)
Date: 1974
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
Unframed: 120 × 96 × 1 1/2 in. (304.8 × 243.8 × 3.8 cm)
Framed: 120 3/4 × 96 3/4 × 2 1/16 in. (306.7 × 245.7 × 5.2 cm)
Credit Line: San Antonio Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by The Brown Foundation, Mrs. George Brown, and Mr. and Mrs. Meredith Long
Object number: 76.172
Copyright: © San Antonio Museum of Art
Label Text
“Painting is a complete commitment—your philosophy, your emotional attunement, your conquest of life, your physical conquest, everything goes unified into a painting.” —Dorothy Hood
The sublimely powerful paintings of Dorothy Hood embody her passion for different types of “landscape”—the vastness of her native Texas terrain, the infinity of outer space, and unknown depths of the psyche. In her paintings the illusion of spatial depth is created by richly textured geometric forms juxtaposed with sweeping water-like washes. Areas of crystalline decalcomania (an image-transfer technique used by some Surrealist artists that involves pressing paint between sheets of paper) and white lines that thinly outline forms are like cracks, crevices, or openings into the world below. As light moves to darkness overall, there is a force that seems to be moving at once upward and downward. Later in her career, after 1981, Hood turned to collage, which also reflects the artist’s approach to abstraction through colliding planar forms and shifting textures. (Suzanne Weaver, 2020)
The sublimely powerful paintings of Dorothy Hood embody her passion for different types of “landscape”—the vastness of her native Texas terrain, the infinity of outer space, and unknown depths of the psyche. In her paintings the illusion of spatial depth is created by richly textured geometric forms juxtaposed with sweeping water-like washes. Areas of crystalline decalcomania (an image-transfer technique used by some Surrealist artists that involves pressing paint between sheets of paper) and white lines that thinly outline forms are like cracks, crevices, or openings into the world below. As light moves to darkness overall, there is a force that seems to be moving at once upward and downward. Later in her career, after 1981, Hood turned to collage, which also reflects the artist’s approach to abstraction through colliding planar forms and shifting textures. (Suzanne Weaver, 2020)
On view
In Collection(s)
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
