“This vessel is a part of the series Unsung Muses and references art historical imagery such as Botticelli’s Venus, the Minoan Snake Goddess, Hera, and the Three Muses. To make the historically idealized women more reflective of real women, I have drawn them curvy, trans and of various races. My hope is that one may see themselves reflected in art, as the Divine, instead of seeing what they should be.”
Reimagining the Divine as You, 2014 Sculpture
Reimagining the Divine as You, 2014
Hand-built and carved porcelain vase
Dimensions: 36 H x 20 W x 8 D in.
Weight: 34 lbs
Alex Hodge was always drawn to the arts and regularly channeled her creativity as a child whether in watercolor classes or scrapbooking with her mother. Hodge focuses on prioritizing women’s narratives in all aspects of her work. Through the decorative and symbolic details, she hints at narratives without completing them to invite the viewer to participate in creating meaning. The women she invents exist in the present but is of the imagined future in which we all have room to flourish, to tell our stories, to give and receive love, and to express the beauty and pain of the human condition. Fundamentally, her artworks are a celebration of the tenacity and vulnerability of women and clay, an interplay of history and hope.
