There Are Several Ways of Marking Trails (Online Exhibition)Saturday, January 20 – Saturday, February 17, 2024
Photography: Lyndon French
Through his decades-long multidisciplinary pursuit of painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture, Chicago-based artist CODY HUDSON (b. 1971 Kenosha, Wisconsin) has created a synchronous body of work, reflecting his focused investigation of form and color. He translates his internal self-examinations and external observations of the natural world into a highly charged and poetically defined visual space.
Cody’s colorful, powder coated steel sculptures begin with a daily drawing and collaging practice. Always sketching or cutting out forms from paper, these investigations are a regular exercise in the development of the artist’s complex and ongoing visual language. They are an immediate response to his day and his environment, whether he is in his studio in Chicago, outdoors in rural Wisconsin, or traveling elsewhere. They are unique documents of time and place.
Post-Float (I Want to Know)
2023
Powder coated steel
15.5 x 12.3 x 5 in
Directly Influenced by Contact with the Planetary Surface (Computer Graphics)
2023
Powder coated steel
25.6 x 13.9 x 7 in
The Way Things Seem to Us (Personal Development and Civilization)
2023
Powder coated steel
19.7 x 9.2 x 6.4 in
Post-Float (I Want to Know)
Collaborating with his longtime fabricators in Chicago, Cody’s drawings are translated into laser-cut steel and assembled with his meticulous oversight, each one carefully considered. They are powder-coated with seamless vibrant color, often reflecting the palette found in his concurrently produced paintings and drawings.
Sight or Sound (Outdoors or Indoors)
2023
Powder coated steel
7 x 5 x 3 in
The Qualities of a Real Perception (Communal or Solitary)
2023
Powder coated steel
13.5 x 9 x 5.4 in
There Are Several Ways of Marking Trails (Sound or Color)
2023
Powder coated steel
12.4 x 7.2 x 4.8 in
Recorded in Isolation (Lightweight and Definitely Useful)
2023
Powder coated steel
7 x 5 x 3 in
So You Bought an Earth House (Everybody)
Cody’s sculptures reference exotic plant forms, precarious landscapes, and modernist design, oscillating between the oddly familiar and altogether strange. In this newest body of work presented here for first time, recognizable shapes are repeated and reoriented to create entirely new compositions, born directly from his building and remixing. Wobbly lines and peculiarly hovering or inverted symbols appear. Trellis-like matrices of leaves and vines, compressed and stretched landscapes, and iterated horizon lines abound.
Sound Without Outside Stimulus (A Force That Allows Individuals to Consider and Reflect)
2023
Powder coated steel
12.1 x 20 x 6.8 in
Offset Blazes is a System (Semantic Vacuum)
2023
Powder coated steel
20 x 10.5 x 6 in
So You Bought an Earth House (Everybody)
2023
Powder coated steel
15.4 x 16.4 x 6.8 in
Sound Without Outside Stimulus (A Force That Allows Individuals to Consider and Reflect)
Cody continues to use both familiar and unexpected colors, referencing the natural world—sky blue, lush greens, yellow and pinks reminiscent of sunrise and sunset—while also making playful nods to the primary colors associated with design, such as a bold crimson. Shape and color come together in exquisite, thoughtful harmony in these newest sculptures.
Deadened with the Heavy Tint Indictive of Selfishness (Points in Space Remix)
2023
Powder coated steel
14.9 x 16 x 7 in
Tomorrow (Dyad)
2023
Powder coated steel
16.6 x 15.5 x 7 in
Organizing, Interpreting and Analyzing (Basic Tone Melody)
2019 - 2023
Powder coated steel
20 x 10.5 x 8 in
Timbre and Dynamics (Active or Passive)
2023
Powder coated steel
13.6 x 8.6 x 4 in
The Way Things Seem to Us (Personal Development and Civilization)
The exhibition is on view from 10:00 am CST Saturday, January 20 – 5:00 pm CST Saturday, February 17, 2024.
You Can't Win Them All.
