Lois Dodd's 2011 Maine Exhibition Reveals Defiant 9/11 Painting and Artistic Process

A 2011 solo exhibition at Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland, Maine featured Lois Dodd's paintings from 1968 to 2010. The show included 'Liberty Painting in N.Y. Harbor' (2002), depicting the Statue of Liberty painting at an easel with the Twin Towers visible in the background. This work has been interpreted as a statement of artistic defiance following the 9/11 attacks. Dodd's painting method involves thin, brushy application with minimal modification, avoiding both abstraction for its own sake and traditional realism. Her subjects range from still lifes and burning houses to whimsical scenarios with nudes, all selected because they are 'interesting for no good reason.' Works like 'Nude and Bridge' (2010) show figures reduced to bold brush sweeps, evoking Bay Area Figuration in miniature. The exhibition demonstrated Dodd's decades-long practice of finding art in everyday scenes, from a tiny white house in 1993 to squirt guns in 1976. Her approach prioritizes temperamental purity over technical perfection, with quirks emerging naturally from her process.