野狼社区 University will host a retrospective exhibit by prominent portraitist Jeff Dodd from Jan. 7 through Feb. 7 in the Norick Art Center at N.W. 26th Street and Blackwelder Avenue. An opening reception will be held in the gallery from 5 to 7 p.m. Jan. 24.
A native of rural western Oklahoma, Dodd has been painting realistic portraits and landscapes for nearly 30 years. Drawing since he was a child, Dodd received his formal education from Southwestern Oklahoma State University where he graduated with a degree in commercial art. After a brief stint as a student at Wichita State University, Dodd relocated to New York City to study drawing at the Art Students League under noted teacher Tony Ryder. However, it was only after he had moved to Santa Fe in 1991 that Dodd first began painting, stating that his influences came from the art of Rembrandt, Monet and Francis Bacon.
Some of Dodd鈥檚 work is part of the state Capitol art collection including the murals 鈥淥klahoma Black Gold鈥� and 鈥淲e Belong to the Land.鈥�
OCU School of Visual Arts Director Heather Lunsford said the show opens with Dodd鈥檚 early paintings from the 1990s and continues to his current body of work.
鈥淚n this exhibition we can see a complex artist who, over decades, revisits very personal themes of his spirituality, a love of expressing the truth and highlighting contradiction,鈥� Lunsford said.
