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Pigment of Imagination

April 15 – August 5, 2023

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  • A museum gallery with grayed blue-green walls is installed with works of art made of or that incorporate ochre. There are paintings hung on the wall as well as cases that hold ancient objects that employ ochre.

    Pigment of the Imagination installed in the Class of 1967 Gallery. Photo by Alison Palizzolo.

  • A museum gallery with grayed blue-green walls displays works of art that employ ochre. There are two Indigenous Australian bark paintings hanging on the wall as well as two wall cases displaying works of art.

    Pigment of the Imagination installed in the Class of 1967 Gallery. Photo by Alison Palizzolo.

About

Ochre is a family of mineral pigments made from iron oxides and hydroxides, commonly known as rust. Humans have collected ochre for at least 500,000 years, and it underpins the earliest evidence of symbolic culture, and later, figurative art, in the archaeological record. Pigment of Imagination explores the dual identity of ochre––it is both mineral and pigment––and the ways individuals and communities have used it to express complex relationships with the environment. To paint with ochre is to paint with the earth itself; it is a means of embodiment, of putting the land beneath one’s feet and into the storyscapes of cultural knowledge. The works exhibited here––from Africa, Australia, Oceania, and North and South America––reflect the global distribution of ochre and its universal appeal as both material and metaphor. To view these works is to visit the landscape of their creation, to bear witness to place as much as meaning.

This exhibition is organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and generously supported by the Harrington Gallery Fund.

Exhibition Curator

Nathaniel Dominy

Exhibition subject: Teaching Exhibition

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CONVERSATIONS AND CONNECTIONS: "Pigment of Imagination"

May 03
12:30-1:30PM