Diptych: Optional Omniscience and Snake Got Your Tongue, 2019

Alex Hodge   New & remarkable Artists

"Optional omniscience and Snake got your tongue" Carved Porcelain Plates. Optional omniscience Carved porcelain Measures: 10 × 10 × 1/2 in 25.4 × 25.4 × 1.3 cm and Snake got your tongue Carved porcelain 9 1/2 × 9 1/4 × 1 in 24.1 × 23.5 × 2.5 cm.

This artwork presents two distinct diamond-shaped ceramic pieces, each showcasing a unique interpretation of feminine figures. The piece on the left captivates with intricate black and white linework, featuring a figure enveloped in elaborate web-like patterns, symbolizing entrapment or interconnectedness. The dark, contemplative visage adds depth and introspection to the composition. In contrast, the right piece bursts with bold reds and whites, depicting a confident female figure surrounded by dynamic flame-like patterns, suggesting energy and transformation. The expressive, flowing hair and striking facial expression convey empowerment and passion. Both pieces utilize a minimalist color palette to maximize emotional impact and emphasize the striking contrasts between confinement and liberation. This dual composition invites viewers to explore themes of duality, identity, and the complex nature of woman's experiences, offering an engaging visual and conceptual dialogue between the two ceramic artworks.

Hodge poetic porcelain plates examine and re-imagine the history of art in a way that values women, not only in body, but in wholeness, power, and love. Focusing on the narrative qualities of art-making, Hodge weaves stories into the clay which are both personal and universal. Alex Hodge was always drawn to the arts and regularly channeled her creativity as a child whether in watercolor classes or scrapbooking with her mother. Hodge focuses on prioritizing women’s narratives in all aspects of her work. Through the decorative and symbolic details, she hints at narratives without completing them to invite the viewer to participate in creating meaning. The woman she invents exist in the present but is of the imagined future in which we all have room to flourish, to tell our stories, to give and receive love, and to express the beauty and pain of the human condition. Fundamentally, her artworks are a celebration of the tenacity and vulnerability of women and clay, an interplay of history and hope.