Dionne Hood

Dionne Hood’s current work is a combination of paintings and mixed media relief pieces that combine embroidery, paper clay, precious metal clay, paper, watercolour, ink and found objects. Each piece is usually accompanied by a poem about and as a response to the physical work.

Moth Baby explores the personal effect of a Catholic upbringing, the all-encompassing ideology that infiltrates all areas of life and what happens when this immersive ideology is questioned by an individual, by Dionne, as a response to events, happenings, behaviours of others and ways of being that are not part of or should not be part of that ideology – the secrets, the hidden experiences and actions that don’t fit within the constraints and parameters of the teachings of the Catholic faith.

The artwork explores the feelings of loss, growing dissatisfaction and lack of confidence that develops when confronted by a happening or happenings that confuse and contradict the all-encompassing guidance, direction and way of living espoused by the family and Catholic faith.

The artwork explores the questioning of deep-rooted views, habits, actions and understandings that are part of the formation of an individual born into the Catholic environment and how this upbringing continues to have an impact on Dionne as an adult. The mixed media and also accompanying poems explore the spiritual, physical, habitual and visual effects on the artist’s upbringing and how these are difficult to reject and exist outside of.

Dionne experiments with varying objects, movements, textures, techniques, lines, writings and temperatures to present information and expressions, to convey a patchwork of passing revelations; a sequence of unconnected or connected answers which may or may not offer the possibility of a coherent ‘story’ – the offering of specific objects, perceived physical actions that don’t necessarily provide an accessible narrative.