Passive Resistance, 1986
Ink on paper
25 1/2 x 19 3/4 inches
Collection of the Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi
2014.16.23

Passive Resistance fits alongside a series of drawings Hood completed after suffering trauma to her neck and spine in the mid-1970s. The injury occurred from her technique of standing and holding her head downward at an awkward angle for long periods while drawing.  In this piece, Hood’s loose, delicate lines show how she adapted her earlier style of precisely dappled marks and thickly stacked lines.  In a nod to her semi-autobiographical, Surrealistic renderings of the 1940s and 1950s, Hood’s figures once again take a fluid form.  In Passive Resistance, Hood’s depiction of a skeletal figure highlights her vulnerable spine.  The vaporous spirit expelled through the nose in combination with the title and the depiction of wild boars, metaphorically demonstrates her silent fight against what is out of her control.