I Mean: I Wish I Could Have Time To Groove W/ You But I've Got To Get On W/ My Life
January 20 – February 24, 2018
Gallery Two

Exhibition Text

(PDF)

ANDREW RAFACZ is pleased to announce I Mean: I Wish I Could Have Time To Groove W/ You But I’ve Got To Get On With My Own Life, a solo exhibition by Cody Hudson in Gallery Two.

Chicago, IL, January 20, 2018- ANDREW RAFACZ I Mean: I Wish I Could Have Time To Groove W/ You But I’ve Got To Get On With My Own Life, a solo exhibition of sculptures by Cody Hudson. The exhibition continues through Saturday, February 24, 2018.

Engaged in an ongoing investigation into shape and color in their most elemental ways, Cody Hudson has developed a body of paintings, installations, and sculptures over the last few years that transcend their reference points. He has created layered compositions that defy easy identification or interpretation.

Recently, Hudson’s anthropomorphic and abstract sculptural forms informed a shift in his approach to painting, opening up a new vocabulary that is bolder, more narrative, and arguably more directly painterly. These newest works are indebted to portraiture and landscape painting as much as graphic composition, at times outwardly suggesting masks, sunrises, beaches, exotic plants and still lifes, while also referencing the artist’s own interiority and the current state of the world.

With this exhibition, Hudson returns to sculpture, bringing some his recent ideas from his paintings back to the medium. The artist presents twenty-six new steel sculptures ranging in scale from a few inches to seven feet. Twenty-four small to medium sized works are presented on a shelf wrapping three walls of the gallery, with a monochromatic wall painting as background. The two largest works sit in the center of the room. Previously, all of his steel sculptures were left raw after they were cut and soldered. Here, the artist presents a number of the new works in three powder-coated colors: a subtle pink, bright white, and navy.

With this newest body of work, Hudson further utilizes distinct designs and negative space as a formal gesture. Many of the works continue to reference human/animal hybrid faces and bodily forms but seek to develop a deeper, more discrete language. Taken together, the results are a bold and activated environment.

CODY HUDSON (American, b. 1971) lives and works in Chicago. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Guerrero Gallery (San Francisco, CA), Andrew Rafacz Gallery (Chicago, IL), V1 Gallery (Copenhagen), Elmhurst Art Museum (Elmhurst, IL), and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, IL). Recent group exhibitions include Circuit 12 (Dallas, TX), Joshua Liner Gallery (New York, NY), Greenpoint Terminal (Brooklyn, NY), and V1 Gallery (Copenhagen). Hudson has been exhibited widely at art fairs in Chicago and Copenhagen. His work is in numerous private and public collections. This is his sixth solo exhibition with the gallery.