Water

Bodies of water and the life that teems below the surface became an inspiration to Hood in the early 1970s. She took up sailing in Galveston Bay in 1972 and particularly enjoyed evening excursions on the water, likening these journeys to mystic experiences. In a series of seven paintings titled Sea Elegy, she echoed the movement of the waves and the fluidity and texture of the water, depicting the fathomless depths of the sea and the churning waves in fields of blues and blacks that ebb and flow across the canvas like the tides. In other paintings inspired by the water such as Dark Plexus VI (1994), Hood evokes underwater mysteries that pulse with color and light. Images such as this, alongside paintings, drawings, and collages that conjure oceanic creatures and marine plant life, were born not only from her time spent sailing on the water but also from her discovery of Dale Chihuly’s ethereal glass sculptures inspired by sea forms, and time spent reading Jacques Cousteau: The Ocean World. These influences and experiences combined in Hood’s work in wildly sublime images that suggest the fantastical and the unknown.