Drew Dodge’s first exhibition at Semiose “Earth Song” in 2024, was a jolt of gentle, unsettling and goofy strangeness. With his upcoming exhibition, the painter demonstrates that his universe, consistent to the point of obsession, is in a phase of continual development.

The elements of Drew Dodge’s visual vocabulary have not drastically changed since his very first paintings when the artist was just twenty years old: hybrid dog and human figures, alone or in pairs; desert, marine, volcanic or cosmic backgrounds; fetish objects such as skulls, ropes and flowers; landscapes typical of the United States, particularly those of the Arizona desert, where he grew up and which marked his childhood.

In this new series, the formats—already large in his previous painting where the figures were at least life-sized—are even larger. New creatures appear, winged or chthonian, sharks or alligators. The figures retain their invariable characteristics, such as droopy ears, two color contrasts, the absence of visible genitalia or hands with four fingers—a feature typical of cartoon characters—they do however gain wings then horns, in successive transmutations. The paintings are laid out as potential narratives—initiatory, mythological (Ovid’s Metamorphoses are never very far away) and are essentially ambiguous.
Drew Dodge’s compositions are becoming more and more complex—circular, spiral, shaped like the symbol for infinity, whirling—all accentuated by the interlacing of ropes, creepers and ribbons, like phylacteries, the tortured movements of matter and the cosmos.

“Figures” is the term Drew Dodge employs for his subjects, reducing them in this way to their basic function, as if to distance himself from any psychologizing interpretation, any form of cuteness, in favor of an abstract approach, which allows the artist to find the right balance between presence and distance within his painting. The zoo-anthropic figure is his persona, in the classical sense of a theatrical mask or in the analytic tradition of Carl Jung, who was also stuck by his discovery of Hopi ceremonies as well as the landscapes of American deserts during his visit in 1925. To be more precise we could use the term fursona, first coined by animal cosplay fans in 1997. In the same way as among furry enthusiasts, the avatar is a furry reflection of its user’s personality, Drew Dodge’s figures are the embodiment of his masked omnipresence in his own works. His choice of the dog—rather than fox, cat wolf or any other frequently referenced animal in the furry universe—brings to mind (at least) two important references.
— Martin Bethenod