Dorothy Hood

Dorothy Hood was a trailblazer in postwar abstraction, forging a distinctive path within American and Mexican Modernist painting. Her large-scale canvases combine the expansiveness of color field painting with surrealist sensibilities, creating immersive “emotional landscapes” that translate her inner experiences into abstract form. Hood’s drawings similarly explore these realms, blending abstract terrains with ghostly, metamorphic human figures to evoke surreal and cosmic dimensions. In the 1940s, her work leaned toward simplified forms, but by the 1950s she fully embraced abstraction, experimenting with texture through the addition of sand to her canvases. This practice not only enriched the surfaces but also connected her abstractions to elemental forces such as sky, desert, rain, and lightning. Returning to Houston in the early 1960s, she produced her first major abstract compositions—unique amalgams of color, form, and surrealist influence—that embodied both personal emotion and the universal power of nature. Hood’s engagement with non-Western philosophies, including Zen Buddhism, Native traditions, and the writings of Sri Aurobindo, infused her work with a sense of transcendence and cosmic awareness. Through her paintings and drawings, she explored the interplay between human consciousness, natural forces, and the vastness of the universe, offering new perspectives on abstraction and the symbolic power of landscape. ...

Lovay Fine Arts is dedicated to present innovative and critical practices by emerging and historical international artists. The gallery aims to connect various generations and nationalities to ground the program in a broad history of art.