For as long as I can remember I’ve imagined my world through the eyes of an artist. My vision was nurtured in a family abundant in creative expression and is the greatest gift I’ve ever received—a real family legacy. Twenty years ago, I was drawing and painting in the classical tradition of realistic rendering. My work was skillfully executed and aesthetically pleasing but I was disenchanted by its lack of narrative content. Foremost I wanted my art to express much more than mere beauty. I wanted to tell a story, to convey not just a view of a face or a figure, but an experience that touched emotions, recalled memories and jarred the senses. Now, my art resonates because of the stories it tells—personal experiences with universal meanings, junctures at which people meet and transcend the barriers of the written word. We are all individuals born into a collective called “family.” But how does family influence the individual? How does the individual influence family? What is our role within this unit? What experiences bind us to one another? We are family and yet we are at times strangers separated by time and distance. The answers may take a lifetime to be resolved. But for now, through my work, I offer a different interpretation of the concept of a “family portrait.” Each piece on view has taken me on a journey, and I’m hoping that you will join me. Dominique Moody was trained in classical western visual arts methods at the Philadelphia College of Art and Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. In 1979 she moved to San Francisco, California and was inspired by the Haight-Ashbury community of artists. In the 1980s Moody suffered a permanent alteration of her eyesight with the loss of depth of field, detail focus and color. Moody was challenged with a blindness that made obvious the limitations of her classical skills. She decided to return to school, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California at Berkeley where she delved into collage and mixed-media work. Moody has since exhibited widely throughout the country, including a one-person exhibition at the Watts Towers Arts Center. Most recently she received a grant from the California Community Foundation through the Getty Arts Trust to continue her ground breaking artistic exploration. |
