Outer Space Machine, early 1970s Ink on paper 19 ¾ x 25 ½ inches Collection of the Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi 2014.16.17

Outer Space Machine is a part of Hood’s Flying in Outer Space series, which she began in 1973. Here, Hood depicted an ambiguous machine—melding human vertebra with the form of an outboard boat motor. An abstracted propeller drills into a celestial orb, disturbing the atmosphere, which she renders in sharp broken lines that radiate waves of energy outward into the cosmos.  In these works, Hood took cues from the NASA program in Houston and movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), to create whimsical, yet unsettling, drawings that imaginatively envision possibilities in outer realms.