ASU Herberger College School of Art Faculty:
2006-2007 Exhibition

April 14 through September 9, 2007

MARY HOOD

Mary Hood
Pooling, 2006
watercolor, screen print
39 ½ x 32" (framed)
Courtesy of the artist

Mary Hood

For many years I worked with the idea of silence as a state of mind; exploring the means of bringing order to chaos. In 2000, my ideas turned to the abstract notion of time, which, like silence, is purely rhetorical rather than factual. Although the events of September 11, 2001 did not predicate the change in my work, they had a powerful impact. For me, time stopped that day and shifted. This shift in our abstract notion of time became a primary focus in my studio work.

Cosmology tells us that time exists in multiple planes, and what is called Imaginary Time is the vertical extension of time, meandering infinitely into the fourth dimension. The x, y and z axes are planes we can quantify through observation and mathematics, but experienced time exists purely in the abstract. My work, collectively called Concerning Time, explores how time is experienced through a sequence of events. I do not personally perceive or experience time as linear, but rather a series of events within events and cycles within cycles. And, not all of these cycles are moving at the same rate. The idea of reconstructing time visually is a concept I see as an empirical means of creating order over chaos, thus creating another sense of silence.

As I continued my work, I realized that time was visually eclipsing itself. The darkness of my recent images, Into Black 11.1- 11.16, spoke to me of the time-space continuum closing in upon itself, and that time was not moving forward, but digressing into a past state of chaos: the global climate of war, inequality, occupation, and conflicting interests and ideologies. This suite of prints was conceived and executed on a very intuitive level that is still mysterious to me.

I then felt compelled to paint 10, 000 Tears. I believe that hand painting 10,000 Tears is an important action to reflecting upon and perhaps reaching a level of understanding the chaotic global climate and demonstrates a commitment to expressing this sentiment with language that is universal in its symbolism. 10,000 Tears is a project to reflect and explore a visual structure to what is often inexpressible. My approach is physically, intellectually and emotionally demanding; the work became my meditation and the repetitive action allows me a vehicle of transcendence, something I actively sought while doing my work with Silence.

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