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  Carter Hodgkin
Reviews
  Carter Hodgkin at Cheryl Pelavin
By Gerard McCarthy
Art in America, October, 2003 pp. 137-138



The exhibition of 24 recent works by Virginia-born New York painter Carter Hodgkin featured large and medium-size oil on canvas pieces as well as smaller works on paper, including a number of monotypes. In her work of the past 20 years, Hodgkin has employed scientifically derived imagery. For the recent series "Aftereffects"," on view here, her source material was electron microscopy the records the activity of neurons deep inside the brain. The works feature allover compositions in which the superimposition of reticulated lines or irregular patterns of cellular outlines, or a combination of both, are set against dark red or blue grounds. The thin blue lines correspond to the neurons that have been magnified and scanned, and then projected and traced onto the canvas or paper. There is a remarkable consistency in the lines, each being about a quarter inch wide and uniform in texture.

Using an assortment of dyes, along with enamel and acrylic paint, the artist pours and spills thin washes of pigment over the surfaces to create turbulent fields . While basically and evenly applied, the layers of color suggest ambiguous spaces that encompass incidents of light and shade as well as areas of atmospheric depth.

Hodgkin, whose studio is located just a few blocks from the World Trade Center site, included in "After Effects" several paintings with deep blue grounds that relate to the events of Sept. 11th. In works such as "Fear Circuit", the compressed composition of contrasting colors and agitated lines refers to the wrenching mental anguish triggered by the disaster and the loss of cognition in the face of catastrophe

In one of the show's most striking works, Dentric Release", batches of irregular parallel blue lines form wiry tentacles extending accross and down the large canvas from the upper right corner against deep reds clouds in the background. From these lines, myriad markings branch in all directions; the composition suggests a loosely woven net unfurling as it is flung accross a blood red sea. In this work and throughout this tightly focused show, Hodgkin successfully explores a phenomenological terrain in which scientific precision and artistic imagination help illuminate the mysterious workings of the brain.