Overload

In her current series of work, the always bold, expressionist painter, Maggi Hodge grapples with our current state of living in inundation: our modern lives are overloaded with physical and psychological detritus that threatens to overwhelm and overburden us with unnecessary chatter and matter. With her generous employment of color and a primitivist aesthetic, Hodge’s remedy is to create within her canvases both elements of the frenetic movement of emotion intertwined with moments of release and calm. Hodge’s message is that we cannot only find our way to calm—but to fight for its necessity.

Hodges’ artistic composition, use of symbolism, and flipping of the positive and negative space in her work depict an overflow of feeling, thought, and reaction to existential forces beyond our control. The array of hues, recurring shapes and tonal shifts in her work suggest chaos at play, but Hodge always has a larger purpose in mind. Hodge’s work aims to transcend and liberate us from being subsumed in a deluge of our own making.

Her work has always been suggestive rather than prescriptive. Hodge calls attention to the created boundaries of our daily existence: technological engulfment, stubborn patriarchy, media bombardment, and the hum of constant underlying social stress so that we can transcend all the cacophony to a much-needed state of nourishing calm. Hodge, a practitioner of meditation, encourages us to find serene shores of solace that are within our grasp.

Hodge’s first solo show, Women, Chaos & X, at MASH Gallery in the fall of 2019 was an overnight sensation—culminating in a completely sold-out experience for Hodge. Curator and founder of MASH Gallery, Haleh Mashian, subsequently exhibited new work of Hodges the following spring at the W Hotel in downtown LA at the show, À Gogo, which also resulted in a complete sold-out sweep of Hodge’s canvases.